Reading Time: 90 Minutes

Title: The Entryway
Series: The Light and the Illusion
Series Order: 1
Author: Lalaith Quetzalli
Fandom: Teen Wolf, Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Action Adventure, Crossover, Episode Related, Family, Pre-Relationship, Slash
Relationship(s): Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Hate Crimes, Hate Speech. Death-Nameless Characters, Dark Themes, Murder, Violence-Canon Level, Non-Graphic Nudity of two teenagers (over 16), Non-Graphic Sex between two teenagers (over 16) (the sex itself is fade to black)
Author Note: This story includes scenes that are supposed to have happened ‘behind the scenes’ of what went on in the story itself. The big changes start in Season 6.
There are several characters from Criminal Minds, and references to past episodes/cases, but it’s not necessary to have watched that series to understand this fic.
Beta: CorgiQueen14
Word Count: 22,294
Summary: Throughout his life Stiles has had to make hard choices: to accept the reality of the supernatural, to learn to not just survive but to fight, to hold onto those who truly earned his loyalty, and let go of those who didn’t… Each choice has been hard in its own way, yet not as hard as what’s yet to come…
Artist: CorgiQueen14
Artist Appreciation: Thank you so much! I love all your beautiful art!

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Chapter I. 2011

On Sunday, after a late brunch, Stiles manages to convince his dad he will be alright. The Sheriff needs to meet with Melissa and Chris Argent if they are to create a convincing story (and proof). Agent McCall’s arrival to Beacon Hills could prove problematic in more than one way, so they need to be able to spin the story in a way that not only is believable, and keeps the supernatural cat in the proverbial bag, but also one that will protect the sheriff’s job.

Stiles wishes so much he could help somehow, any way at all, but there’s nothing he can do at this time. Trying to keep himself distracted he calls Scott, getting nothing more than a voicemail. He supposes he could be with Derek, learning how to be an alpha and all that. The teenager tries to keep himself busy, cleaning around the house, going through his clothes, seeing which he can still get the blood out of, mend the tears (he convinced Mrs. Abernathy, the widow living a couple of houses down to teach him how to sew for a reason) and which are a lost case entirely.

Eventually, he finds himself in his bedroom, putting away his research materials. He makes sure to keep the sources he found trustworthy, while the ones that turned out to be nothing but lies go straight into the trash. His bedroom is beginning to look half-decent when the window slams open.

“Stilinski!” a voice calls.

Stiles doesn’t shriek (he doesn’t!). What he does do is reach for one of the crystal vials he keeps on a shelf, filled with mountain ash, throwing it in the direction of his window, forcing himself to focus on creating a barrier.

“Hey!” the newcomer snaps.

“Cora?!” Stiles freezes in shock.

“What the hell, Stilinski?!” Cora demands as she slams a hand against the barrier keeping her trapped close to the window, unable to advance, but also unable to go back out. “What’s this?”

“Mountain ash,” Stiles answers promptly.

“I know that, smartass,” Cora snaps. “What I mean is why did you attack me?”

“Why did I…?” Stiles trails off. “You’re the one who just barged into my bedroom, unannounced, through the fucking window!”

Even as he says it, half of Stiles’s attention is on the ash, his eyes narrow briefly and then the ash starts floating in the air, straight to his hand. He hesitates briefly as he reaches for another vial (mentally patting himself on the back for thinking ahead and buying a dozen of those vials as, while he’s taught himself to call the ash back, there’s nothing he can do about the broken glass vial).

After the rave, and the failed attempt at catching the kanima, Stiles went back to collect the mountain ash. Originally his intention was to give it back to Deaton, but first he kept forgetting, and then he was nervous that he might not have been able to recover as much ash as he was initially given, so he kept putting it off. Then Deaton made a comment that led Stiles to realize that the vet/druid did not expect Stiles to return the ash; what’s more, he did not expect Stiles to be able to recover it… or to have been able to use it correctly for that matter (which he believed to have been the case, since they didn’t capture the kanima that day).

It was then that Stiles realized a few very important details: like the fact that only Derek and his betas actually came across the barrier, and only the alpha knew Stiles to be responsible for it. Since he had to break it shortly afterwards so that Derek could go save Scott, nobody else realized it. The part that most stuck with the human though, was Deaton’s complete lack of reaction to it all. It led to Stiles realizing a few things: like the fact that the druid might have given Stiles the ash, making him believe that the human could finally be useful, but he never expected the teen to be able to use it. Or was it that he knew from the start that there just wasn’t enough ash for what was needed? Was that why he hadn’t even given Stiles proper instructions? Why he only did his cryptic routine with that ‘be the spark’ speech? What did that say about Deaton? What did it say about Stiles? But more than that, what did it say that Stiles managed to make it work despite all that? It didn’t matter that no one else but him and Derek knew, that most probably wouldn’t even believe it. Stiles knew…

“Isn’t that what everyone else does?” she asks sassily.

Stiles opens and closes his mouth repeatedly a few times.

“Oh, I could kiss you!” he blurts out, only realizing what he’s said after the words have left his mouth, he snaps his mouth closed so hard his teeth clang together and he winces in pain.

Surprisingly enough, Cora doesn’t seem to take offense to that, she just… laughs; and then she moves, so fast the human can’t quite follow her with his eyes, instead he finds himself being slammed against his bedroom wall in a move eerily similar to what her brother did the first time he was in Stiles’s bedroom… Stiles even opens his mouth to point that out, but before he has the chance Cora’s mouth is on his and well, that’s that.

The kiss doesn’t actually last that long. But the shock’s still enough for Stiles to be completely breathless when Cora pulls back.

“Wha… what…?” he babbles, completely thrown.

“Next time I put my lips to your mouth you better be awake.” Cora quotes, teeth half-bared in a smirk. “Well, I’m awake right now.”

She looks so much like… and it’s making all of Stiles’s blood go south.

“That’s what you said, isn’t it?” she points out.

“I… it is…” Stiles swallows. “I… I didn’t expect…”

“That I would take you at your word?” Cora finishes for him. “And more?”

“Y… yeah,” he admits.

Cora just kisses him again. Again, a short kiss. Mostly because Stiles is still so thrown he’s not quite responding, which is absolutely insane! Here is an absolutely gorgeous girl kissing him, as good as propositioning him, and all he can think about is all the ways she reminds him of her brother?!

“Look Stilinski, it’s not complicated,” Cora states bluntly. “I’m not looking for any confessions, or love declarations. Right now what I want is to have sex, and for that I need someone I can trust.”

And she came to him. Stiles doesn’t need her to be any clearer than that. So with that in mind Stiles moves just enough to this time be the one to capture her mouth in a kiss. Cora’s feisty, not that the human is surprised. It takes no time at all for her to take control of the kiss and Stiles neither complains nor tries to take it back, just giving in.

He’s not quite sure how they end up on his bed, exactly, distracted as he is by Cora (though there’s definitely some manhandling involved and some parts of him enjoy that, very much!). Stiles might not have much experience (which is to say, he has none at all, or none that involves another person anyway) but it’s clear that she at least knows what she wants, and the teen-aged boy has no problem following her lead.

“Stiles,” he manages to say at some point when she, yet again, calls him by his surname, because that’s way too formal for someone he’s having sex with. “Call me Stiles.”

xXx

Hours later, Stiles wakes up to find Cora standing by his window. She’s still naked, her golden skin almost glowing under the sunlight. He also notices that she seems to have no issue with someone possibly seeing her through the window.

“You leaving so soon?” Stiles asks, aiming for joking but not quite managing.

While they both agreed that it was just sex, no strings-attached, he doesn’t like the idea of her just… leaving, without even saying goodbye or something.

“We’re leaving tonight,” Cora states softly.

Stiles doesn’t miss the pronouns being used, or the implications.

“Oh…” he murmurs, forcing himself to swallow past the knot in his throat as he sits up in the bed, the topic of conversation pulling his attention quite effectively away from his own nakedness and any sense of embarrassment he might have left. “I’m glad.”

That does seem to surprise the she-wolf, who turns to look at him over her shoulder. It’s clear that whatever response she might have been expecting him to have to the news that they (the Hales, all of them) are leaving, was really not that one.

“Derek… he’s been through so much, too much,” Stiles clarifies quietly. “If anyone deserves to get out of this fucking hellhole it’s him.”

Cora turns fully to look at him, head tilted to a side as she seems to consider… something about him.

“What…?” he blurts out eventually, unable to help himself. “Is there something on my face? Did I drool while asleep?”

Even as he asks he’s already rubbing at his cheeks and the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand, and even the edge of his bed-sheet.

“You’re something else, Stiles,” she announces.

“Is that a good thing, or a bad one?” he asks, curious.

She shrugs, as if she cannot decide, or just doesn’t care to think about it.

“Anyway, I’m not leaving just yet,” she announces.

Stiles doesn’t need to ask what she means by that, as it becomes pretty obvious as she climbs back on the bed and straight on his lap, their naked bodies coming in contact immediately. A moan escapes Stiles’s mouth at the very touch of her. At least he’s no longer as inexperienced; he’s a quick study, and has been paying attention to what she likes best, which she seems to appreciate.

That night, after they’ve both showered… and wasn’t that an interesting experience? Stiles has never shared a shower with anyone, and while the upstairs bathroom is a bit on the small side, the downstairs one is actually big enough that there’s no trouble fitting both of them at the same time (it’s the bathroom that’s connected to what used to be the master bedroom, before his mom died and his dad chose to move to one of the upstairs bedrooms… and Stiles would really rather not think about the possible implications of that!).

Stiles makes sure to cook enough not just for the two of them, but so he can save his dad a plate, and there are even some leftovers for her to take to the other Hales.

“So… how long have you had a crush on my brother?” Cora asks about halfway through dinner.

Stiles is taken so by surprise by those words that he almost chokes on his food, he sputters and has to swallow half a glass of water and cough several times before he can breathe right, much less get a single word out… or well, he would if he could think of a single word to say to that!

“What…?!” Is all that he manages to get out, eventually.

“Oh come on Stiles, you think I cannot smell the lust coming off of you whenever my brother bends down, or flexes, or even just walks into the fucking room?” Cora scoffs.

“It’s not a crush!” he eventually manages to cry out.

“I can smell it!” she insists. “We all can!”

“You what?!” He almost shrieks at that, then considers something else. “Wait, why did you come to me then? If you… if you know I… I like your brother?”

“Well, it’s not like you’re actually together,” she shrugs. “Or like I expected you to fall madly in love with me or whatever. And I told you, I needed someone I could trust. I can usually pick someone up in a nightclub just fine, but right now…”

She needed more than just a hookup after almost dying, even if she wasn’t expecting any romance, any actual relationship, she wanted more than just getting off with someone in a bathroom or a motel room. Stiles does get that, and he does still feel honored that despite having known each other for such a short time she’d be willing to trust him that much. Which leads him to reveal what he does next:

“It’s not a crush,” he murmurs softly, and before Cora can say anything to insist, he clarifies. “It’s actually more than that.”

For a minute or so Cora seems to be the one who doesn’t know what to say. When she finally finds her words, her tone is quiet, soft:

“I remember that day, you know?” she murmurs quietly. “When Boyd died… Derek let you touch him, when he didn’t allow anyone else even close. Not even me.”

“What are you trying to say?” he asks, just as quietly as her, as if fearing that speaking any louder will break the moment.

“I think you know exactly what I’m trying to say.”

“He’s still leaving,” he reminds her.

“He is. Would you begrudge him that?”

“Of course not! This place… I… Beacon Hills has nothing but bad, dark things for him. Memories of pain, and grief, and loss… Derek deserves better than that. He deserves to find peace and happiness. And the first step for that is getting the hell out of this place.”

“It still has you.” Cora tilts her head to the side.

“Doesn’t matter,” Stiles insists. “I’m but one person.” He exhales. “Besides, me having feelings for him doesn’t mean he reciprocates, or that he ever will.”

“It’s not that easy for him.”

“I know. I…” He cuts off, those aren’t his secrets to share. “I know.”

“You know? I think you do.”

There are things about her own brother Cora doesn’t know, and she’s aware of that. She has no idea if Derek will ever trust her enough to tell her, but in that moment she realizes it doesn’t matter. Because he’s not alone, there’s at least one person who knows; who, whether he understands or not, does know, and accepts her brother. And Cora knows how important that is. Derek isn’t alone, and if she knows Stiles any, he never will be.

“You’re definitely something, Stiles,” Cora states later, as she goes to leave.

He still doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean, exactly. Though her smile tells him it’s probably something good.

Stiles stands by his front door, watching Cora walk down the street all the way to where the preserve begins, disappearing into the shadows of the trees. A part of him wonders if he’ll ever see her again, if he’ll ever see any of the Hales again. And as much as a part of him might hope that the answer to that question might be yes, he still holds onto what he told Cora, if anyone deserves to get out of the veritable hellmouth that Beacon Hills has proven to be, it’s Derek. The guy’s gone through so much, he’s earned some peace and happiness in his life.

Does Stiles like him? Definitely. Stiles started falling for him the first time the sourwolf slammed him against his bedroom wall and hasn’t stopped since (he probably never will). Even the fantastic sex he and Cora had could never erase what he feels for her brother. Those feelings came first, and it’s not like what he and Cora had was anything more than a fling. She said it, it was just sex. And Stiles is fine with that. Also, it’s not like he’s planning to do anything regarding his feelings for her brother. Even without considering the age difference, and the fact that he’s still in high-school (and that his dad’s arrested him, twice!) Derek’s leaving Beacon Hills and that… that’s a good thing. Stiles is convinced of that.

“Stiles?” His dad’s arrival surprises him so much that Stiles cannot help but flail. “Is everything alright?”

“Wha… uh… yeah!” Stiles doesn’t sound convincing, at all.

“Wanna try that again, kid?” The sheriff arches a brow, waiting.

“It’s fine,” Stiles insists, turning away from the knowing gaze of his dad and walking back into the house. “Left you some dinner in the oven.”

Thankfully, his dad doesn’t press the topic, and Stiles makes it back to his bedroom soon enough. Once there he takes a look at his messy bed and after some consideration strips the sheets and gets them into the washing machine. The last thing he needs is for his dad to start asking uncomfortable questions. When he makes it back he opens his window wide and even makes sure to spray some air-freshener just to be on the safe side… he ends up using a bit too much and rushes to the window to get some fresh air when the smell becomes too much for him.

He ends up staying there for a few minutes, just staring out into the night, watching the preserve in the distance, almost imagining he can see Derek… He can’t, of course not, but still. He can imagine him, all talk, dark and handsome. That tiny smile on his face, the kind only his pack ever gets to see…

“Good luck, sourwolf,” he whispers to the empty night.

Chapter II. 2012

Derek came back. He came back at the worst possible time, the time when Stiles needed him most, when he couldn’t even truly help himself, much less anyone else.

There are things he’s never said, things he probably will never say. Chief of is how close he came to giving up the fight against the void-fox. He might have, were it not for Derek. Really, there’s a reason why the nogitsune hated the wolf from the get go, and tried so hard to kill him. Stiles had been fighting for so long… a moment came when he thought he’d nothing left to give. Derek’s return proved him wrong, it made him pull up a well of strength Stiles knew not he possessed.

He thinks that might have been the moment the nogitsune realized it wouldn’t be that easy. There might have been a time when Stiles contemplated surrender, out of sheer exhaustion more than anything else. But that possibility vanished like smoke the moment Derek Hale showed up. It’s… even without saying a word, Derek was capable of giving Stiles the will to fight. The nogitsune tried to break that, tried to break Stiles, to break Derek, it failed.

He’s not saying it was an easy victory. Because it wasn’t. It was in fact very, very hard. Stiles still came close to losing the fight. It was only his spark, his magic, that saved him. And the fact that the human teenager knew so little about it all, that the fox could not use it against him. When the void-fox kicked him out of his own body, in an attempt to kill him once and for all, instead Stiles’s own spark reacted and he got a new body of his own. A brand new body, without the wear and damage and deep scars of the old one…

Granted, this meant that when the final battle took place shortly afterwards, Stiles could barely move. On the one hand, it was a new body! It felt like his whole body had gone numb, or fallen asleep on him and he was just getting it to work. On the other hand, it was brand new, with no nerve damage, no deep tissue harm, no scars… It was a good thing, really. But at the same time, Stiles had gotten used to working around all the hurts in his old body, moving a certain way, avoiding certain motions, a brand new body without all that? He had to re-learn how to even walk! Also, as he’d eventually learn, the new body wasn’t entirely human…

He’s not a kitsune (thank the gods!) but he’s not entirely human either. His senses are slightly heightened, his reflexes as well, and his healing is definitely above anything a human possesses.

All of that isn’t the real issue, though. While things aren’t perfect, and Stiles knows that one day he’s gonna have to fully process the fact that his body was changed without his consent, that he’s been changed against his will. He knows he can deal with that. No, the real issue is more mental. Is… he knows he’s not actually responsible for all the people the nogitsune killed while in his body. The people at the hospital, and the station, and even Aiden and Allison! He, Stiles, did not kill them! He knows that. On the latter two, it wasn’t even the nogitsune itself that killed them, but rather Noshiko’s oni, after it took them over. It’s the fact that Stiles knows the void-fox went after all of them because of him! The fucking nogitsune went after his friends, his family, his pack!

He knows everyone at the hospital, how could he not after all the time he spent there when his mom was sick? Same with the station. Following his mom’s death he kept having panic attacks, needed to always know where his dad was, that he was safe (it was that which led to him getting that police scanner installed in his jeep, and his obsession with his dad eating healthy); so he spent a lot of time at the station as well. The school, the team! Those are obvious enough. And of course, his friends, his pack… only, should he still consider them his pack when he barely sees them anymore?

He doesn’t blame Lydia. He knows she’s been dealing with her own trauma, having wailed for both Allison and Aiden. She told Stiles she doesn’t blame him, and he believes her, she just has to process her own grief. Isaac is gone, same as Chris Argent, and Stiles isn’t entirely sure if he’s running away from his grief over the loss of his girlfriend, or the fact that in her last moments that same girlfriend chose to give her last words, her last smile, to her ex instead of him… The real issue though, is Scott. Stiles understands that he’s grieving Allison. Even if they were no longer together, she was his first love, they had all this star-crossed-lovers, Romeo&Juliet thing going on, he gets it! But even days, weeks, after it’s all over, when even Kira, even Peter, have dropped by to visit, to make sure he’s alright, Scott hasn’t shown up. Not even to check-in on Stiles, not even to say hello. Aren’t they supposed to be best-friends? Brothers? Isn’t Scott supposed to be his alpha?!

Only, he’s never cared about being an alpha, has he? Just like he never cared for being a beta. Scott has only ever been interested in how being a wolf will give him things (health, skill at sports, popularity) and never what responsibilities might come with that. Not like Derek, who with or without an alpha spark has never stopped doing his best to look after everyone.

Stiles cannot help but wonder, does Scott blame him? For Aiden, for Allison… Is that why he won’t visit? Truth is, he’s too afraid to ask.

xXx

When first Christmas and then New Year come and go, Stiles doesn’t actually realize it at first, nothing beyond the fact of it being Winter Break. It’s not the fact that his dad’s working, his dad always works during the holidays, there’s nothing new about that. But usually he at least insists on them having breakfast together and exchanging presents on Boxing Day at the latest. He’s so busy nowadays, Stiles doesn’t really blame him. It was bad enough, after Matt’s attack, and the darach’s own murders did not help matters any; the nogitsune placing a bomb in the sheriff’s office only made worse something that was already pretty bad. They’ve lost so many people at the station, not only deaths, but those who either had to retire due to injuries, or who chose to either retire, resign, or move elsewhere, afraid that they might be next. So of course those few left have to do what they can to fill in the gaps. It’s not like Stiles’s dad is the only one pulling double and triple shifts in an attempt to make due.

But no, his dad’s workaholism is not the reason why Stiles misses the date entirely. It’s… it’d have been easy enough to find out. The moment he logged into any of the forums he’s been carefully cultivating a presence in over the past few years (in order to gain trust and information from various individuals in the supernatural community). In fact, the moment he turned on the computer at all, he’d have been able to see the date. Thing is, he hasn’t done that. Not his phone either. He’s barely even left his room, even his bed, at all, in weeks! Facts that are pointed out to him, at volume, by none other than Jackson Whittemore when he comes into his room one day.

Stiles can only blink because, what the hell is Jackson Whittemore even doing in his bedroom so early in the morning in fucking December?!

“It’s January already, stupid,” Jackson points out bluntly. “Also, late afternoon, closer to evening, in fact. Which you’d know if you even bothered looking out the window, or even opening it.”

As he says that, the other teenager opens Stiles’s blackout curtains, ignoring Stiles’s comments about him liking things as they are.

“It smells awful in here, like something up and died,” Jackson states. “What the hell happened?”

“I killed people, didn’t you hear?” Stiles blurts, burying his face as deep as he can under his pillow, since he’s not being allowed to keep the darkness in his whole bedroom.

But wait, no! Stiles doesn’t believe that. He knows that it was the nogitsune’s fault, not his own… He does know that, right? Then why does a part of him not believe it?

“I heard a fucking demon killed people,” Jackson answers. “Not like you decided to go on a murder rampage or anything. Feeling guilty for the things someone else did with your body doesn’t mean you’re actually responsible for those things.”

“How do you know that?” Stiles cannot help but ask.

For all answer Jackson flashes his beta-blue eyes at him. The eyes, the memory of what they mean (murder blues, the hunters like to call them, though as Stiles has since learned, they’re not actually a sign that the wolf has killed, not even that they have ‘murdered innocents’, like the hunters claim; but rather that they feel guilty for deaths, whether they were involved at all or not). And of course Jackson would know, having been the kanima, and been used as a murder-puppet by both Matt Daehler and Gerard Argent. Of course he’d know exactly what Stiles is feeling!

Jackson takes full advantage of Stiles’s shock at the flashing of eyes to pick the human off the bed, sheets and all, and carry him to the bathroom, dumping him into the tub and then opening the shower full force before the other teenager can even think to react.

“What… What the hell dude?!” Stiles splutters.

The water isn’t actually freezing, surprisingly, which shows a level of premeditation on Jackson’s part. Also, a degree of kindness that Stiles isn’t entirely sure what to do with.

“Wash-up,” Jackson orders. “I’m going to strip your bed, clean things up a bit, hopefully it won’t smell quite so rank once it’s aired-up.”

Stiles could be petulant and refuse to do as told. He could even be extremely childish and refuse to even move from the spot where Jackson dumped him. And while there’s a part of him that really wants to be petulant, and childish and immature and so many other things… the greater part of him knows that there’s no point to it. Such actions will hurt no one more than himself.

It’s… so maybe he’s not quite as recovered from the insanity that was the nogitsune as he thought. Some of it might be Scott still not getting in touch with him. He hasn’t heard so much as a word from his supposed best-friend, his brother, since winter break began, and barely anything at all even before that. But Stiles cannot have his own mental and physical health depend on Scott. It’s… alpha or no alpha, Scott has never been any good at taking care of anything, not even himself (the continuous loses of his inhalers, forgetting his meds, needing other people to keep an eye on what he’s eating in case he has a bad reaction, come to mind); Stiles cannot depend on him. Though apparently there are others he can, in fact, depend on…

After a shower, and getting dressed in a pair of old skinny jeans that while comfortable are more close-fitting than he usually goes for, and a dark-blue henley that’s a bit tight on the shoulders and loose on the arms and waist (and which he’s pretty sure is not his!) Stiles makes his way downstairs. At some point Jackson grabbed his damp sheets, and the rest of the bedclothes and put them in the washer, apparently. He also took all the trash from Stiles’s bedroom and opened both windows wide, same as the door. It’s not perfect, but definitely better than it was before (the smell was, in fact, starting to get to Stiles, even with his -mostly- human nose).

He finds Jackson waiting for him in the kitchen. He’s sitting on one of the stools by the island, and in front of him are three styrofoam containers, and two cups. Stiles can smell the eggs, sausage and potatoes that must be in one of the containers. The logo on top confirms that they’re from that place on Main and 5^th that does breakfast foods all day (he loves that place!). He opens the first container to steal a bit of hash-browns before turning to the second one, expecting to find pancakes to round-up the ‘full American breakfast’, instead he finds french-toast with berries and a small pot of honey (actual honey, not syrup). He blinks in disbelief.

“What…?” Jackson asks, sounding more than a little self-conscious, even as he pulls the third container (a giant burrito) to him. “You do still prefer french-toast to pancakes, don’t you?”

Right. Stiles doesn’t know if he ought to be shocked that he’d forgotten Jackson knew that, or that after so many years Jackson still remembers such a thing…

Back when Claudia Stilinski was still alive, Sunday brunch at the diner was a family tradition. His dad took it as an excuse to eat eggs and beans and hash-browns, always a big plate; and of course pancakes drowned in syrup. His mom on the other hand preferred to eat waffles or crepes with fruit and maybe yogurt instead of eggs and the like. Stiles on the other hand, while he liked the traditional breakfast just fine, he soon realized that he did not like the diner pancakes, they were too thick and heavy for him, and the waffles had a strange texture for his tastes. That was when he got introduced to the french toast with fruit and honey that one of the new cooks was trying out at the time. He loved them.

Stiles remembers the Whittemores having lunch there several times, usually after some weekend activity or other Jackson was involved with. This was before their enmity came to be (before Stiles’s mom died, Jackson found out about the adoption, and the two of them fought over something Scott said or did… Stiles cannot even fully remember what it was, exactly). Stiles can hardly believe that Jackson remembers Stiles’s old order.

It’s as good as it’s ever been. Stiles finishes every bite, until he isn’t hungry anymore. And he won’t even say he hadn’t realized how hungry he was; rather, he’d stopped paying attention to it. Food just didn’t seem important for a while there.

For the longest time not a word is said. Stiles eats his food, drinks tea, while Jackson drinks one of his own strange-concoctions-that-shouldn’t-be-called-coffee. Stiles keeps waiting for Jackson to say something, but the other teenager won’t even look at him, just drinks, and turns to look at his mobile every so often. Eventually it’s Stiles who breaks:

“How do you do it?” Stiles blurts out. “How do you move on knowing that you killed people? That your hands destroyed so much…? And there was nothing you could do about it.”

“I don’t,” Jackson answers honestly. “I don’t know if it makes it better or worse, but I don’t actually remember any of the things I did when I was the kanima, when either of them were my masters. I mean, I know what they had me do, I know…” he looks down at his hands, and for a moment Stiles regrets even asking, as he sees the shadow in flashing blue eyes. “I know I was used as a weapon, to kill people. And I… I feel a degree of guilt for it all, it’s why my eyes are blue. But I don’t actually remember any of it.”

Stiles has to actually stop and consider that, is that better or worse than his situation? It’s no picnic, remembering all the things the nogitsune did. Granted, he doesn’t actually remember every single thing, especially those that happened early on; but truth is that the more he understood what was going on, the more aware he became, even as he kept being taken over. On the other hand, he also remembers fighting the void-fox every step of the way. Remembers only giving in when innocent lives were at risk. And even as he capitulated, he was already planning his next move. It’s what allowed him to eventually free himself.

Would he rather not remember? Now that he actually thinks about it, no. He cannot help but think that not knowing would be worse. Because Stiles is the kind of person who takes pride in his mind. Knowing he did things, bad things, and yet not having memory of any of them… it’d drive him crazy (he very carefully does not stop to consider the specifics as to why, the fact that he connects forgetting with sickness, with his mom…).

“I’m not going to tell you to stop feeling guilty about things you did not choose to do,” Jackson adds. “It wouldn’t work. I know that. What I will tell you, is that you should remember that you fought. And I know you did. It’s just who you are. You fought, and you won.”

“Doesn’t change all the people that died,” Stiles cannot help but mutter.

“No, it doesn’t,” Jackson agrees. “But how many more would have died as well if you had not kept fighting, if you had not won?”

Stiles isn’t sure he’d call it winning. Is having survived enough to call it that? The nogitsune was trying to kill him when it kicked him out of his own body, and Stiles lived. Stiles is pretty sure that Dr. D hasn’t stopped to consider what made such a thing possible, or maybe he actually believes that the nogitsune did that on purpose (giving Stiles, its enemy, a new body on purpose? Really?!). But in any case, if Dr. D realized what actually happened he’d know Stiles isn’t quite as useless as he’s always believed (tried to make him?). In any case, he supposes that, considering the odds, and the nogitsune’s actual intentions, surviving can be called a victory. Still…

“I’m not the one who defeated the nogitsune.” Because he wasn’t, that was all Scott. And Kira, a bit.

“Oh come on!” Jackson actually scoffs. “Are you telling me that McCall could have actually defeated that demon without you?!”

It’s obvious what he believes already. And Stiles… There’s a part of him that really wants to defend Scott. Despite how bad things might be for the time being, despite how bad a friend, an alpha, Scott might currently be. He’s still Stiles’s best friend, his brother (isn’t he?)! But at the same time, he cannot help but think back to the fight, to all the times he had to insist that the nogitsune was a master of illusions, that all he was doing were illusions. How both Scott and Kira kept trying to fight back even though it wouldn’t do them any good… Stiles wants to believe they would have gotten it right in the end. But would they? Kira, being a kitsune herself, probably would have realized what was going on eventually, but Scott? And they needed him to win that fight, so…

In the end Stiles just shrugs, because what else can he possibly do?

He’s just finished his tea when Jackson orders him to put on some shoes (he’s barefoot) and grab his keys, as they have places to be.

“What?” Stiles asks, because really, what’s going on now?

Of course, Jackson, because whatever else might happen, he’s still a jackass at the best of times, refuses to give any explanation. And when Stiles starts dragging his feet he actually threatens to carry Stiles out of the house like a sack of potatoes and drop him in the trunk of his rented car. Stiles decides not to push; not because of any possible indignity, but he thinks something like that might actually make him sick, and he’s sure that fantastic food won’t taste as good coming back out like that.

It doesn’t take long for Stiles to realize where they’re going exactly: the preserve, not far from the old Hale House. Derek, Peter, Lydia, Ethan and even his dad are all there, seemingly waiting for him and Jackson (Ethan takes him aside one moment, right as Stiles is starting to hyperventilate, trying very hard not to look at him; assuring him, in a clipped, gruff but very sincere tone that he doesn’t blame the human for the death of his brother, that was all on the oni, and the nogitsune). Stiles realizes it then, these people before him, right here, they’re his pack with or without an alpha. They’re his friends, his family, his pack.

That night is spent with all of them together, reconnecting, learning to move on after all the horrors, the losses, the fear. They learn to lean on each other, to trust each other, and themselves, again. And it’s good. It’s a good first step (new year, new life, right?).

Chapter III. 2013

They make it all the way to Chicago before calling quits. And it’s not… it’s not that Stiles doesn’t love Lydia anymore, he does, totally; he just isn’t sure he’s in love with her anymore… or that he ever was.

Life has been more than a little insane since that night in the preserve, the wolf-moon he spent with his pack, feeling so happy, so safe… he’s had little reason to feel either of those in more than a year.

It started shortly after the full-moon: Derek went missing. If Stiles had had his suspicious of Scott not really being alpha to him, or Derek, or really anyone who’d been together that night, and if Ethan’s departure soon afterwards (or the fact that Jackson could come into the territory and leave again with Scott being none-the-wiser) hadn’t been enough proof, his complete disregard for Derek’s absence, for his safety, would have cinched it.

That whole episode with the ruthless Mexican hunters, the berserkers, the not-dead bitch Kate (and Stiles still isn’t fully sure if the blue skin made her look more terrifying, or utterly ridiculous), and Derek’s de-aging, followed by the loss of his status as a werewolf, and then his death, however temporary… Stiles is sure his heart actually stopped when he came out of the van and found Derek badly wounded and dying. He wanted nothing more than to just stay there and… and what? He has no idea! He just wanted to stay!

But Derek told him to go, to save Scott. And if Stiles truly held Derek as his alpha, spark or no spark, that means he had to do what he asked of him, right? So Stiles went.

Derek lived. To this day, Stiles hasn’t the slightest idea how that even happened, but what matters is that he did. He ‘evolved’, or so he called it, gaining the ability to turn fully into a wolf, something his mom was known for being capable of. And then he left.

It’s… Stiles wasn’t surprised, is the thing. He wasn’t surprised when Derek first left with Cora, the previous September; he was more surprised that he returned as soon as he did, actually. Stiles is infinitely grateful, of course; he’s sure that he wouldn’t have survived without Derek. So, he wasn’t surprised when Derek chose to leave, after their second ill-fated trip to Mexico (and really, is the country cursed or what? Two trips there, and both absolute disasters!). He was sad, of course, but not truly surprised.

Things did not get any better after that. It was bad enough having to deal with all those crazy assassins at the same time as the mess with Derek and crazy-jaguar Kate. With all the crazy chimeras, the fanatic Dread-Doctors, their endless attempts to bring back the Beast and Theo-fucking-Raeken, the fall term of their senior year could hardly have been any worse!

It’s… Stiles doesn’t regret Liam. Really, Scott’s first-beta is probably one of the few things he believes his friend to have done right. Stiles cannot help but see the boy as something like a kid-brother or something. Even if his turning didn’t happen in the best circumstances, and his anger issues caused all sorts of trouble. Funny enough, there are times when Stiles cannot help but think that he still had less trouble training Liam than he did Scott!

No, the real issue through it all was Scott. If Stiles thought things couldn’t get any worse, he was so, so wrong. He’d like to blame Theo, he really would. He would love to blame the sociopathic bastard, with his crazy plans, his desire to create his own psycho-pack, and to have ‘void-Stiles’ in it. The thing is, as much as Stiles abhors the bastard, in the end Theo was little more than a ‘bad guy’ so-to-speak. No different than anyone else they’ve fought, like Kate, and Gerard, and all those crazy assassins. The real trouble there was Scott, him choosing Theo, choosing to believe him, over Stiles. Choosing the newcomer, the old-friend neither of them had actually seen in years (couldn’t even be sure it was actually him and he wasn’t just a stranger using the name!) over one he claimed was his best-friend. If Stiles had held any hopes for their friendship to ever return to what it had once been, they all died one rainy night when Scott refused to so much as listen to him.

“Yeah, because you’re Scott McCall! You’re the True Alpha! Guess what? All of us can’t be True Alphas! Some of us have to make mistakes. Some of us have to get our hands a little bloody sometimes. Some of us are human!”

Except he’s not, is he? Not really, not anymore.

Though that doesn’t change the fact that he killed Donovan, in self-defense, accidentally even! And Scott didn’t believe him. He took Theo’s word that Stiles was a cold-blooded killer and would hear nothing else on the topic. And that… that was the end of it.

“Say you believe me!”

It was what Stiles kept demanding, kept begging Scott to do. And he didn’t.

They won in the end. Against the Beast, even against the Dread Doctors. Raeken’s still around, redeemed, supposedly, so Stiles cannot consider that as a win, but as long as he doesn’t have to be around the bastard, that’ll be enough.

As for the spring-term of senior year? Yeah, that really wasn’t any better. Between the Ghost Riders (he got taken! Got completely erased from existence! Everyone fucking forgot he even existed! Even his dad, and Scott, even Lydia!) and the Nazi-werewolf (they have Nazi-werewolves now? WTF?!) and Theo-fucking Raeken come back from hell. Oh, but he regrets his past actions now, so everything’s perfectly fine, of course! And on that subject, how come it’s all fine and dandy when someone else, anyone else (Raeken, Deucalion, and everyone with the surname Argent, for example) commits horrible murders, as long as they’re sorry (even if they’re not, and thinking back on Gerard, at times they don’t even pretend to be). Scott’s so willing to give other people second, and third and infinite chances; believe in them and trust them… everyone but Stiles. Why?!

But back to Raeken, sometimes Stiles wants to go back and shake Liam, again. He loves the kid, of course he does, but what the hell was he thinking?! He destroyed a kitsune’s tail, Kira’s tail! To save Raeken?! Stiles knows that Liam didn’t know what he was doing, Scott never explained it to him. A part of him actually wonders if even Scott realized, if he paid Kira enough attention to really know what she was trusting him with… probably not.

So, Ghost Riders, and Nazi-werewolves, and Beacon Hills falling into some kind of timey-wimey hole or something… because how else can one explain so many people going missing and no one in the rest of the county, or anywhere else, realizing it? Like, people have families out-of-town, and jobs, and friends and… yeah. Also, while he and Lydia are fairly convinced that days passed while he was missing, and everyone else disappeared over a lapse of weeks; others insisted that he wasn’t gone more than a day or two. Stiles would think it was just Scott not paying attention to anything that isn’t one of his girlfriends, again… but the thing is that, it’s not just him. Also, Lydia told him about the Rider that impersonated his mom, but his dad never mentioned anything, not even vaguely.

And then, because of course one insanity could not be enough in Beacon-Hells… then there was the Anuk-Ite. And that woman, Miss Monroe, and her attempts to kill every supernatural in the school. She was their freaking counselor! How is it that people working at the school keep trying to kill them? Does the school just not vet their people anymore?! (Have they ever? Kate comes to mind).

So… the Anuk-ite. When Lydia told Stiles that the creature had escaped from the Phantom Train Station of the Ghost Riders, where he’d been trapped, and that it was during his rescue that it managed to escape as well… Stiles thought it was on him to deal with the problem. Which he did. The issue? The only way to stop the Anuk-ite was to keep its two halves from coming together again, two halves that had already taken over the lives of other people. One a freshman transfer student: Aaron Lint; and the other a beta-werewolf, and junior student: Quinn Finch.

It wasn’t even… okay so Stiles had known from the get-go that he was going to have to kill one of them. Just as he knew that they weren’t really Aaron and Quinn, not anymore, the two students had already been killed by the Anuk-ite, Stiles even managed to identify Quinn, among the flayed bodies found by the pack in the preserve. What he did not need was St. Scott and his perfect pack getting to him right as he managed to stab Quinn with a rowan dagger covered in yellow wolfsbane. Scott didn’t even think to ask what was going on. As far as he was concerned, that was just proof that Stiles truly was a killer.

And maybe he is! If being willing to kill to protect himself, his friends, his family, his pack, his town! If that makes him a killer, then he is one! But he’s not the kind of person who’d murder in cold-blood, with no reason; which is what Scott seems so intent on believing. Thing is, he only seems to have a problem when it’s Stiles who kills (or a Hale). If it’s someone with the surname Argent, then it’s all fine, isn’t it…?

So it’s probably not surprising that when graduation came, Stiles and Scott weren’t really talking to each other anymore. Melissa did approach him to wish him well, but didn’t stay. He has to wonder what Scott’s been telling her. Though truth be told, he cannot bring himself to care enough to actually ask. He had lunch with his dad, then spent the rest of the day with Lydia, finalizing their own plans for the summer and then college.

Which is how, days after they were officially done with high school (and Beacon Hills, at least for now), Stiles and Lydia found themselves in her Prius, their things in the back as they prepare for the ‘road trip to end all road-trips (as Stiles insisted on calling it). They were both heading to the East Coast, where Lydia had some pre-college summer courses lined up, while Stiles would be doing an internship with a PI and getting in contact with the local supernatural population, hoping to expand on the network he’d been working on for the last couple of years.

It had been hard, but from the start Stiles decided to leave the Jeep behind, he knows that most think it was because it wouldn’t have made the trip, but the truth is that as old as the Jeep is, as beaten-up as it looks, Stiles poured so much magic into it throughout the years that he knows nothing short of a nuke will ever be enough to destroy it. Which is why he decided to leave it, and give a copy of the keys to Liam. If ever something happens and he cannot be there, at least his pup will have somewhere safe.

So, back to the trip. While it’s true they could’ve flown to the East Coast, the car and all their things being sent with a moving company. Stiles, and to a lesser degree even Lydia, wanted to do the road-trip. It wasn’t just about all the uninterrupted time together (though that was a huge plus), and all the places they marked in their maps, wanting to visit them, at least briefly. It was the thought of being free, of Beacon Hills, of high-school, of so many things and people that had done nothing but hurt them… They were out, they survived.

They make it as far as Chicago before deciding to call it quits. It’s hard to tell who even says it first. The truth is, they’re both thinking it.

“This isn’t working.”

“No, no it isn’t. It’s not that I don’t still love you…”

“But it’s not enough. Not… loving isn’t being in love.”

“No, no it’s not.” Not the same, not enough.

And while there was a time when Stiles might have thought that he could make due. When Lydia was his perfect girl, his ultimate dream, when he couldn’t imagine there being something, someone, he’d choose over her. That’s not his life anymore. He’s not that person anymore. And neither is Lydia.

The sex is still really good, and as long as they’re both clear on what they want from each other, what’s the problem? Also, more than the sex, sharing a bed for them is about comfort, about knowing the other is there. That Lydia isn’t back in Eichen House being tortured by Valack, or losing her mind as she hallucinates a younger Peter Hale, or wandering naked in the preserve; that Stiles isn’t in the basement of Eichen House listening to the nogitsune’s endless riddles, or in the Phantom Train Station with so many people and not a single one of them really looking at him, or in the Argent murder-basement waiting for a rescue that will never come… So many places, so many traumas. Is it any surprise that they’re both a little broken?

xXx

All in all, they have a pretty good summer. Their nightmares might not end, but they lessen in both number and intensity. They slowly but surely learn to enjoy their free time again, to be out and about and not be on high-alert, always expecting an attack. Stiles jokes once that it’s like they’re war veterans learning how to be civilians again… it might be funny, if it weren’t so true.

One night Stiles and Lydia find themselves in their bedroom, in the little apartment they rented for the summer. Stiles is wearing nothing but his boxer-briefs. The three prominent scars on his body very visible (one on the back of his shoulder, from Donovan’s wendigo-lamprey mouth; the second a burn on his arm, from his failed attempt at escaping the Phantom Train Station with one of the Ghost Riders; the third a set of claw-marks across his chest, which he got from ‘Quinn’ when he killed her to stop the Anuk-ite), though he’s long since stopped feeling self-conscious about them, or about his body in general. Most people believe the scars to have been caused by animal attacks, and a camping accident (not quite as interesting as the truth, but far more believable, especially to those not in-the-know). Lydia, for her part, is in panties and a washed-out, loose t-shirt that actually used to belong to Stiles, her preferred bedclothes (much more comfortable than camisoles and negligees and the like). She’s sitting on a little stool in front of the bed, where Stiles is sitting, while brushing and braiding her hair.

“You could have gone out, you know?” she says out of nowhere. “It is Saturday night, after all.”

“Yeah? So could you,” Stiles turns it on her, she’s not even surprised.

“I wasn’t in the mood,” she says in a very prim tone.

“Yeah well, neither am I,” Stiles retorts simply.

Neither of them say a word for a little while. Stiles finishes the braid and pulls away, leaving her to handle her nightly beauty routine while he heads to put the towel he used to dry her hair in the hamper and brush his teeth.

“Have you considered dating again?” The question comes out of nowhere, right as Stiles leaves the bathroom and heads to his side of the bed.

“What?” What’s he supposed to say to that?! “Lydia…”

“No, really,” she presses. “Stiles, just because we didn’t work out doesn’t mean you have to stay single. I mean, of course if you do start dating someone we wouldn’t have sex anymore, but there’s nothing wrong with some platonic bed-sharing, is there? And that’s all we do most nights anyway.”

“Do you want to have sex more often?” Stiles blurts out, because he honestly doesn’t know what else to say. What’s she even aiming for?

“No, not really,” Lydia admits with a small shrug. “That wasn’t the point!”

“Then what is the point?” Stiles questions. She’s always been stubborn, but her pushing so much on this specific topic doesn’t make sense, so why then? “Why are you so intent on this matter Lyds?”

“I don’t want you to be alone…” she admits, so very quietly. “You… I mean… you care so much about people, try so hard to look after others, more than yourself. I just… I don’t think you’re good at being on your own. Looking after yourself.”

It’s… she’s not entirely wrong, is the thing. Stiles spent so many of his formative years so focused on taking care of others, especially Scott and his dad, it marked him. It became part of his nature, taking care of others. He’s not quite as good at taking care of himself. It’s not like he’ll go hungry, or the chores won’t get done if there isn’t someone else around to see to it, but it is true that when he fixates on something he tends to forget things like showering, eating, or even leaving his office/room.

“You make it sound like I should be looking for a nanny, rather than a girlfriend or boyfriend,” Stiles mutters as he pointedly turns the covers on the bed.

“That’s not what I mean!” Lydia spins around on her stool (which she’s moved to her vanity table), face a bit tinted with the cream she’s been applying, some residue still on her fingers. “I just… I feel bad that I couldn’t be what you need, give you what you truly need. And… and you’re such a great guy, Stiles, truly, you deserve so much…”

“First of all, I thought we agreed we couldn’t be what each other needed.” Stiles makes sure to emphasize the right words. “This wasn’t some… some failure of yours Lydia. We’re great as friends, even sexually compatible, we’re just not meant to be life-partners, soulmates… it happens, it’s not your fault, or mine.”

“I don’t think I want one, a soulmate I mean,” Lydia admits quietly.

Stiles just cocks his head to the side as he sits on the bed, back against the headboard, waiting for her to elaborate. Lydia’s the kind of person to let things out at her own pace, it’s better if he doesn’t try to pressure her; if he does she’ll just clam up and say nothing at all, and he has the feeling she needs to get this all out.

“I… my Grandma?” she explains. “You know she went crazy. Ended in Eichen House.” Stiles doesn’t say a thing, he doesn’t need to, she keeps going. “From what I’ve found out since, it started with the death of her wife. Grandma was a banshee, not very strong, but still, she had the power. She didn’t know, didn’t understand… she didn’t realize what was going on, when she predicted her wife’s death. Not until it was too late. Afterwards… I don’t know if she thought there might be a way, a supernatural way, to undo death, if she wanted so badly to have someone to blame, even herself or maybe… I don’t know! The thing is, she didn’t just research herself. That other banshee, Meredith? Grandma hurt her so much… and I know she was mad with grief but… I don’t want to become that kind of person, Stiles. I… I know I’m not a good person, not really. I use people, I take any and every advantage given to me and I do not think twice about it.”

“I know, Lydia…”

“I’ve used you,” she blurts out.

“I know.” That seems to throw her for a loop, so Stiles elaborates: “Not gonna lie, there might have been a time when I had this idealized image of you in my mind. Back when we were in elementary and I first saw you and thought you were so pretty and so brilliant and so… yeah, anyway. But that was a long time ago. I didn’t actually know you then. Afterwards, as I actually came to know you, I realized that you are, in fact, all those things, and so many more. You’re pragmatic, logical, so brilliant it’s actually scary sometimes. No, you’re not a nice person, but I think that the kind of world we live in, this world of monsters and magic and shadows, nice… truly nice people, rarely survive. And you’re a survivor Lydia. We both are.”

“I… okay… Okay.” Lydia nods, hesitantly at first, then more sure of herself. “I still don’t ever want to have to wail the name of someone I love. I… a friend would be bad enough…” her eyes narrow. “So you better not make me wail your name, do you hear me Stiles Stilinski?!”

“I hear you.” He salutes her in a joking manner before adding, seriously: “I’ll do my best.”

It’s the best he can promise her, and she knows it.

For several minutes neither of them says a thing. Lydia finishes applying her cream, goes to wash her hands, then returns to the bedroom where she turns the covers and slips into bed, making gestures until Stiles rolls his eyes playfully at her but slides down until he’s laying on the bed, letting Lydia curl up against his side, head under his arm and slightly propped up on his chest. She’s told him that aside from Jackson she’s never been interested in cuddling up with anyone. Saw it as too much, being too exposed, too vulnerable. Only two men she’s ever trusted that much, and the funny thing is (at least to her): she was never in love with either of them. They’re her dearest friends though, and always will be. And maybe, maybe that’s enough.

“I still don’t think I want a soulmate,” she murmurs eventually.

“And that’s okay too,” Stiles assures her. “As long as it’s your choice. A decision you make fully informed, after having thought about it; and not something you feel pushed to out of fear, or anger, or anything else.”

“My choice,” Lydia nods after a moment. “What about you? Do you want a soulmate?”

“I do understand where you’re coming from, you know?” Stiles says, apropos of nothing. “I… my dad may be nothing more than human, but his love, his devotion to my mother… She was the love of his life, and even though I know he’s been more open to the possibility of moving on, of dating someone else, in the last year or so, I know he’ll never stop loving her, not really.” He pauses, contemplating the past. “I still remember, right after we lost mom… the loss of her crushed him. It was… even after he pulled himself out of the hole” the bottle “he fell into, out of grief and… he’s still not the same man he was back when mom was still alive. I don’t think he’ll ever be that man again.” He pauses again, swallowing hard. “And as much as it terrifies me, the thought of it, of loving someone so much their loss would destroy me as much as mom’s did dad… I have to admit that there’s a part of me that yearns for it. Not the destruction, no. I don’t wish for the end, I wish for everything that comes before the end. Because I do still remember the man my father was when mom was still alive. He… they were both so happy, so… They were totally and absolutely in love with each other, devoted to each other. It’s…”

“I remember,” Lydia murmurs quietly. “I remember watching your parents, back in elementary, when they’d attend the festivals and all that. I remember wondering how come my dad never looked at my mom the way your dad looked at your mom…” She sighs. “And then I found out about his secretary.”

It’s not a secret to Stiles, that it was Lydia who first found out about her father’s affairs, nor how long it took for her mother to even be willing to accept it. They’ve talked about it; back when their parents first went on that date, and the two considered what that might mean for the future, it never amounted to anything in the long run, but still.

“So I suppose the bottom-line is that, yeah, I do want a soulmate,” Stiles concludes.

And actually, he already has a candidate in mind, but that’s not something they need to get into tonight.

At the end of the summer Lydia takes a plane to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Stiles sees her off with flowers, chocolates and all the drama expected of a boyfriend. It doesn’t matter that they’re not actually dating anymore, it makes Lydia smile, which is the whole reason Stiles does it. After that Stiles grabs his own bags (they’ve already terminated the lease on the apartment) and makes his way to GWU. Life goes on, and so must they.

Chapter IV. 2014

Stiles’s college career starts pretty well. He’s attending George Washington University, doing a double program, seeking to earn degrees for Paralegal Studies and Homeland Security. There was that suggestion from Agent McCall, that Stiles would do well with the FBI, he has the mind for it. The man even suggested he might be willing to put in a good word for Stiles when the time came. And while Stiles would love to get to be an agent, at least for a while, in the long run he’d like more to be something like a PI, the kind that works the cases that not many people can fully understand, the cases that touch the edges of the Shadow World (when they don’t fully fall into it). It’s part of why he’s been working on his network so much.

It started back in Beacon Hills. He was the guy with the answers, the one who always knew what to do and how to solve whatever problem came up. Initially that reputation might have come from Scott simply expecting him to have all the answers, even when there was no logical way for Stiles to actually have them (he’d known about the supernatural practically as long as Scott himself had, and his friend expected Stiles to magically be an expert on the topic instantly?!). But Stiles didn’t let that stop him. He might not have known anything at the beginning, but he learned.

As he discovered, the most important thing when learning about the supernatural is being able to separate the truths from the lies. Also, being able to tell when a lie is being told by supes trying to keep their own secrets, and when it’s nothing more than hunter propaganda. It’s not an easy distinction to make. Like the whole idea of a beta turning human again if they kill their alpha. That’s a myth, a straight-out lie, popularized by movies, but started by hunters, who see it as an opportunity. As a new beta is unlikely to be able to kill their alpha, and if they manage, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to handle the influx of power of them becoming the alpha, making it easier for the hunters to come in and kill whoever is left in the end.

Then there’s that whole ‘True Alpha’ fairy-tale. A story created and propagated by packs to protect their secrets of how alpha-sparks can be obtained (other than the obvious, with a beta or omega killing an alpha). Stiles has managed to gain enough of a reputation throughout the years (and his connection to the Hales, the fact that it’s known they trust him, certainly doesn’t hurt) to learn some of those secrets the packs seek to protect, by perpetuating that particular lie. Because there are, in fact, ways for a beta-wolf to become an alpha, without having to kill (or inheriting it from someone else, as happens in most packs of born-wolves). There are some really incredible, elaborate rituals that involve magic, oaths being sworn and, almost always, a nexus. Stiles is pretty sure that the original Hale alpha-spark came to be in such a way, by the Hales making a covenant with the nemeton. And of course there are also the transfer-rites, used when one alpha decides to retire and pass on their spark before actually dying, or when a beta-wolf kills an alpha, either by accident or in defense of the pack, yet they don’t want to be an alpha, so they pass on the spark to their own alpha, to add to their power.

Stiles has no idea where Scott’s own spark comes from. Though (somewhat conveniently), at least two alphas died, and the twins lost the spark they shared, around the same time he gained his so… Also, with Deaton being a former-Emissary, he probably would know enough rites to get things done. It doesn’t matter. Stiles doesn’t really care. He knows for a fact it’s not the Hale-spark (it cannot be) and that’s enough for the time being.

Something Stiles realized early on in his research of the supernatural, was just how many had exactly the same issue as him: not knowing what might be true, and what might be a lie. Also, a secondary issue seemed to be that most supernaturals were too worried about keeping their status a secret, they were too afraid both to ask for help, and to help others. Stiles has tried to break that trend. Which is why he not only made an effort to learn as much as he could, but when he’d see someone asking for help (and he was fairly certain it was a real issue, from a supernatural, and not a hunter trying to kill innocents) he did his best to help. Those he helped would afterwards insist on paying him back somehow. Most did it with information (things didn’t know already), others would send him materials, herbs, crystals, all sorts of things that weren’t easily acquired (and could sometimes be quite pricey), while a few would pay him back by doing him favors, either for himself, or to help someone else.

A moment came when Stiles no longer had to go looking to find people who might need help, they came to him. He was coming to be well-known in certain circles. Most don’t really know his name, he’s simply known as Red. That’s how his network came to be.

Among all those he helped were a few kitsune. They were in particular awe of him, after learning he was possessed by a nogitsune and survived (apparently he was unique in that respect). Getting to know them, to know how kitsune abilities differ from shifter ones, helped Stiles better understand his own enhancements. He was mostly human, but not entirely. A bit stronger, faster, more agile and with better senses than the average human (not to the same degree as shifters, not even actual kitsune, but still); he’s pretty sure it’s mostly due to the complicated origins of his body, also, his magic allows him to push some of those things a bit (move, heal and such faster for short amounts of time).

Something else he realized after meeting those kitsune, was that there was no way the skinwalkers could truly help Kira. They were two entirely different species, and while the things the skinwalkers might teach her could serve as a stopgap measure, it won’t work long term. Stiles has no idea why Mrs. Yukimura never got proper help for Kira, even taking her to Asia if necessary! But in the end, whether she couldn’t, or just wouldn’t, Stiles decides he won’t let a friend of his suffer, possibly die (it is a possibility, perhaps even a surety, if her power keeps growing), so he arranges things for Kira to get the help she truly needs and deserves.

The kitsune call him once, right after reaching Kira, mostly so he can talk to her, confirm that he truly did send them, they can be trusted, and are there to help her. Then he hears nothing else from them, until Kira herself shows up at his door months later. She hugs him, tight enough he’d feel his bones grind if he were still fully human; and the only thing coming from her mouth is an endless stream of ‘thank you’, mostly in English, though sometimes she’ll slip into Japanese.

It takes a while, but eventually Stiles manages to get her to calm down and the two sit down with some tea and start talking:

“Did you go back to Beacon Hills?” Stiles asks her.

“I… yes, yes I did,” Kira admits. “Though only briefly. To visit with my dad and let him know I’m alright now. I also saw my mom. I asked her why she didn’t get the right kind of help for me. I thought she had to have known that the skinwalkers wouldn’t be enough…”

“Did she?” Stiles cannot help but want to know.

“No,” the answer actually surprises Stiles. “It’s something that I never took into consideration. How different things were for both of us, as our powers manifested. From what I’ve learned, most kitsune take a whole century to get to nine tails. My own mother didn’t earn her ninth until a few years into her second century. Me? Aside from the tail all kitsune are born with, I earned my second absorbing the electricity that could have killed so many at Beacon Hills Memorial, the third during the last battle against the nogitsune, and the fourth when I worked with the skinwalkers to summon Tara Raeken’s spirit and send Theo to hell.”

Not that that lasted long, but anyway! Stiles does understand what she’s saying. She earned three tails in a single year, in a matter of weeks really, and chances were it didn’t stop there.

“How many tails do you have now?” Stiles really cannot help his curiosity.

“Six,” Kira closes her eyes briefly, her kitsune aura manifesting around her.

Her aura is the usual orange of all kitsune, though with hints of silvery-blue, probably representing her thunder nature, and the six long tails swish behind her are all tipped in electric-blue and seemingly throwing off sparks (not physical ones, but still). It’s a quite powerful image, and Stiles cannot help but be in awe of Kira.

“It’d be seven if I hadn’t…” She trails off for a moment. “If my first one hadn’t been broken.”

If Liam hadn’t been such a fool to break it, if Scott hadn’t been so stupid as to not protect it properly. If they all had realized how precious it was, had given it the respect and care such a treasure deserved…

“I knew it, you know?” Kira murmurs unexpectedly. “The moment it was broken, I knew, could feel it inside. I went half-feral, tried to leave the skinwalkers, fought them when they refused to let me go. I was so sure something had to be terribly wrong. What other reason could there be for my tail to have been destroyed? I had to be sedated for some time, and my mother was called in. By the time she got to New Mexico she’d done her research, found out what had happened. She berated me for being so foolish to leave my tail in Scott’s hands, but I just…”

“You thought he understood.” Stiles murmurs.

“Not really.” Yet again she surprises Stiles. “I mean, how could he, when even I didn’t fully understand it? No. I expected him to love me enough, to care for me enough to guard it, to hold it precious. When I gave him my tail for safekeeping it wasn’t just because I felt it was too dangerous to keep it myself, but I saw it as my way of showing how much I loved him, how much I trusted him. It was a token of the promise I made to him that I was coming back… And he was utterly careless with it. He gave it up. Gave up on me.”

What can Stiles possibly say to that?

At least Kira’s not alone. She has him now, and she always will.

xXx

It takes time and effort, but eventually Stiles manages to convince Kira to get her GED and apply to several colleges in the area so she can continue her education. He even makes arrangements to leave the dorm at the end of the term and instead rent an apartment with her. They’ve quickly become the best of friends… they’re pack.

The summer after his first year in college, Stiles gets a few tattoos done. They’re magic tattoos, most of them runic, on various parts of his body, to serve as protections. They go well with the small symbol already in the back of his left ear, the kanji for ‘self’ which his magic automatically copied after the mess with the nogitsune. The most important however, are the tattoos he chooses to have done on the inside of his wrists: on the inside of his right wrist he chooses to get a triskele, to show his allegiance to the Hale pack (though his personal mantra is ‘the sun, the moon, the truth’, rather than ‘alpha, beta, omega’, since he’s not a wolf himself). On the inside of his left wrist he gets a chaos star, as he feels it’s a good symbol for his magic. Each of the eight tips of the star means something to him: acceptance, compassion, courage, creativity, justice, loyalty, passion and wisdom. This tattoo is special in several ways, it’s more magical than the others (to be expected, since it represents his magic) and it even changes as he and his magic do. Each point of the star is a different color, and it changes both shade and length depending on him (his mental state, current circumstances, etc).

Another plus of his tattoos all being magical is that he can keep them ‘invisible’ at will, and usually does. It allows him to call less attention upon himself, especially from those who might be aware of what some of the symbols of his tattoos actually mean. The only one he leaves visible most of the time is his chaos star, as it’s become his symbol. What he uses to identify himself (much as the triskele represents the Hales to the supernatural community as a whole, the fleur-de-lis the Argents, or the triquetra de Charmed Ones).

Kira’s never been a fool and after just a little studying with Stiles (once she’s gotten a study-guide and found what things she wasn’t at school to learn) her scores are so good that she manages to not only get into college, but into GWU. She decides she wants to be a lawyer, because sometimes supernaturals need lawyers too, and they deserve to have someone who will actually understand them. Also, she thinks she and Stiles could do good work together, either in the FBI, or outside it…

Stiles for his part does so brilliantly in his second year at GWU that he doesn’t even need Agent McCall to do a thing, all his teachers talk wonders of him, and one informs him at the end of the term that she’s sponsoring him into the FBI internship that summer. Stiles is both floored and ecstatic. He knew about the internship of course, it was one of the worst-kept secrets on campus! The kind of thing that is supposed to be ‘top secret’ so, of course, everyone knows! He still did not expect to get in, and especially not to find himself sponsored (meaning that he wouldn’t have to go through all sorts of hoops to earn a spot between dozens, maybe hundreds, of candidates).

“I got in!” he announces loudly, cheerfully, as he enters the apartment.

Kira peeks out of the kitchen, where she’s been working on lunch. She’s dressed in a house-yukata and tabi-socks. Ever since she gained full control over her kitsune side she’s made a point to be more in touch with her heritage. Fully learning Japanese (the writing, especially the kanji, still gives her some trouble, but she’s getting there) as well as more of the history (especially the supernatural history), the folklore and even the cuisine. Once she’s done with that, or at least with the basics, she’ll do the same with the Korean (it might not be as big a deal, as she didn’t inherit anything from that side of things, but it’s still part of her heritage, part of her, and her dad, whom she loves dearly).

“That’s wonderful Stiles!” She smiles wide at his excitement. “Go wash up. I made curry for dinner, we should celebrate.”

Stiles’s eyes narrow. Kira’s curry is fantastic, he’s not complaining, but the recipe she uses is old, really old, and it takes forever. It’s not the kind of dish Kira would usually choose to cook on a random Thursday, which means…

“You knew!” he cries out.

“I didn’t know.” She puts special emphasis on the last word. “But at the same time, of course I knew. It’s you Stiles, of course you were gonna get in.”

Stiles just laughs, loud and boisterous. It does something to him. To have someone believe in him so much, so absolutely. He hasn’t had it in so long. Kira believes in him, in his skill, his abilities, in his goals for the future, the way his dad believes in him, the way his mom once did… the way he used to think Scott did… But now’s not the time to think sad thoughts. Now, it’s time to celebrate. He got the FBI internship!

Chapter V. 2015 – Part I

When it’s all said and done Stiles can only wonder how things could go so absolutely nuts so quickly.

He’s in Quantico, Virginia, in some nondescript building owned by the FBI, where he was driven to in the back of a black-van with tinted windows while wearing a bag over his head (an extreme measure, and utterly useless since he can still sense things with his magic just fine, but he’s not saying a thing about that). He ends up sitting on a metal chair, in front of a metal table, with both hands handcuffed to a bar under the edge of the table. He has just enough range of motion to take the bottle of water he was given and drink from it if he bends down just a bit. Not the most comfortable situation, but not the worst he’s been in either.

The hardest thing of all is perhaps sitting still, remaining calm while he’s left to wait in the small interrogation room. He does his best to do some meditation. His current position might not be the most comfy, and recent events, as well as his current situation, make it harder for him to find his center than it already is usually, but he makes an effort. Stiles knows it’s important that he remains calm. People are watching him through the glass, trying to find what makes him tick. What made him do all he did before ending up in that interrogation room…

The human knew, from the moment Derek Hale of all people showed up on that screen, on the first day of his FBI summer internship, that things were about to go to hell. They probably already had, in some ways, if the FBI was going after him, had him tagged as a mass murderer on an international scale. Regardless, when the time came he didn’t hesitate for even a moment, Stiles Stilinski will always do anything to protect Derek Hale.

The young man knew there would be hell to pay. It was only the skill and competence that he’d demonstrated thus far, as well as the words of his professors and sponsor (the one who got him invited to the internship in the first place), that allowed him to join the field op. And he knew from the start that his actions would lose him all he’d worked so hard to gain, but it was Derek! So he did what he had to, got Derek out of there, and when they compared notes and realized that shit was hitting the fan in a major way, they hightailed it to Beacon Hills together. Arriving just in time to save everyone from a bunch of crazy hunters armed to their teeth. And Stiles has to wonder what exactly has happened in the past two years, and why no one told him a thing! He knows things have changed, that he said things, and did things, that made it so some no longer trust him; but they must have known that he’d always be willing to help them, right? He will always fight for those he cares about!

They regrouped in Deaton’s Animal clinic after the shoot-out at the shipyard. Talking things out and trying to get everyone on the same page:

“So, literally day one of my internship, and up comes this slide about this guy they’ve been chasing in the woods of North Carolina.” Stiles was telling them, making sure to be as sarcastic as possible.

“I thought you were in South America…” Malia stated, confused.

“I was,” Derek nodded. “The bodies of the wolves I told you about? They blame me.”

The Alves Pack in Cabeceiras, Brazil, yeah. Far from the only werewolf pack recently killed, but it was the only one Gerard Argent actually bothered incriminating Derek for. Expecting the FBI to connect those murders to all the others and automatically blame Derek for them all… Which was exactly what happened.

Stiles knew it was going to require a miracle to solve that particular mess, and by Derek’s grim expression he could tell the wolf knew it too. Yet, there would be time for that. First they needed to solve whatever mess was taking place in Beacon Hills.

“So, I learn that the FBI has cornered this feral, mass-murdering unsub…” Stiles began, being as dramatic as he could.

“I found a group of Hunters gathering in a meeting place.” Derek cut him off, side-eyeing Stiles, knowing exactly what he was doing. “I was trying to get information.”

“Yeah, well, the FBI found it, too, and they were planning a SWAT assault to take him down, dead or alive,” Stiles pointed out.

A quick glance at the others told him Scott and Malia were wide-eyed with a mix of awe and worry, while Lydia’s little smirk made it obvious that she was humoring Stiles but didn’t believe most of what he was telling everyone. Thing is, he wasn’t lying, not really. He might have made it sound a tad more dramatic than it actually was, but the facts behind it all were completely true. Including the FBI’s intentions when it came to the Op.

“And, as we all know, though, with Derek, it’s preferably dead.” Yeah, he wasn’t lying about that either, much as he might wish he were.

More than one person was taken aback by that. He wondered if Derek didn’t believe him before, when Stiles told him about things while they were on the road. Or perhaps it was just that he forgot, what with everything that happened afterwards…

“Preferably.” The wolf snorted.

“So, I convinced them to take me on the field op.” Stiles continued.

That made Scott and Malia look even more shocked; and finally Lydia began looking impressed.

“You convinced the FBI to bring an intern onto an extremely dangerous field operation?” she asked, a hint of awe in her voice.

“I’m surprised he didn’t convince them he could lead it.” Derek deadpanned with a roll of his eyes.

“I tried… didn’t work.” Stiles stated.

It was a lie of course (though he was sure only Derek would be able to tell); even he wasn’t that crazy. And really, getting the Special Agent in Charge of the Op to let him, and a couple of other particularly promising interns join the field Op was difficult enough. He made sure not to be the main force behind that; basically putting the idea into several other interns’ heads and then supporting them, while still keeping carefully out of the limelight. Then he just ensured that he would be one of the best in all the tests, so he’d be among those chosen. He had no doubt that with the agents being as intelligent as they were, and with everything Stiles did during the Op, they would at the very least suspect his involvement in more than just what went wrong that night. But he knew from the start how it’d go.

“Anyway, long story short, I basically had to, you know, save his life.” He decided to stop with the games and just get to the point.

Of course because Derek is… well, Derek, he couldn’t just let it go at that.

“That’s not how it happened,” he stated, a glint of mischief in his eyes.

“Yeah, I may have left out a detail, but that’s the gist of it.” Stiles tried to leave it at that, though he knew it wasn’t going to work.

It was unsurprising that while Scott and Malia still looked suitably impressed, Lydia had gone back to her old skepticism.

“That’s the essential essence of it,” he insisted.

“You couldn’t walk.” And there it was, Derek had to say it.

“I was limping.” Stiles tried to fib.

“You couldn’t walk,” Derek insisted with a sigh. “And I know that because I was carrying you.”

And okay, so things might not have been quite as simple as he was trying to make them seem. But him getting shot in the foot, being unable to walk for a while there (because the injury was, in fact, worse than anyone, even Derek, knew, and it took a little while for his magic to fully heal him) didn’t erase the fact that he saved Derek that night!

He’s pulled out of his memories as the door to the interrogation room opens with a click. Seems like it’s time to begin!

“Mieczyslaw Jan Stilinski,” A man steps into the room, file in hand and reading from it.

The agent managing to pronounce his name (mostly) correctly is enough to draw Stiles’s attention. Which only sharpens when he actually looks at the agent and realizes he knows him… somewhat. The man is SSA Aaron Hotchner, until recently the Unit Chief of the BAU. Not anymore because, if rumors are to be believed, he had to leave in order to go on witness protection, due to an unsub stalking him… or his son, the gossip didn’t seem to be clear on that one. Truly, agents are even worse busybodies than teenage-girls! Though Stiles assumes that either the rumor mill got it all wrong, or things have since changed, what with Agent Hotchner there in that room and all.

“21 years old, dual Bachelor’s degree in Paralegal Studies and Homeland Security from GWU, expected to take either one or both to Masters in the next two years. Got recommendations from all your HS professors for the FBI internship this summer, where you consistently proved to be among the top 3…” he trails off, seemingly re-reading something before switching, looking through several other pages in the file, reading those and going back. “You could have been at the very top across the board, except you made sure to stay within average parameters in certain areas, the ones where two others could shine. Made some of the agents in charge tag you as an underachiever but that’s not it at all, no, this was clearly too well-planned. Just like your inclusion into the Field-Op in North Carolina. The same which, by all accounts, you blew.”

Stiles’s face does… something. Even he isn’t sure what exactly, though it’s clear the agent notices it immediately (he’s a profiler, of course he notices!).

“It wasn’t about the Op at all,” he seems to realize. “Or at least, it wasn’t about blowing it. You know, several people really high in the chain of command are all for kicking you out of the program, of college and blacklisting you, if they do that you’ll never be able to find a job in law enforcement anywhere in this country.”

Stiles winces. That would… it would not be good. It’s really not something he wants. And yet, even if that ends up being the price he pays for his actions, his choices, he won’t regret saving Derek.

“Most seem to believe that you either went into things intentionally seeking to blow a big FBI operation,” Hotchner continues. “Others that you’re Hale’s accomplice in his crimes.”

“And which one do you believe, agent?” Stiles asks, doing his best to sound confident, though he’s not quite sure he manages.

“What I believe doesn’t matter, only the facts do,” Hotchner points out. “And the facts I have… do not fit together.”

Stiles arches a brow. He cannot help it, he’s curious about what facts the man’s talking about exactly.

“I know Derek Hale is the sole survivor of the Hale family,” the agent starts listing. “Lost most of his family in a fire that was originally labeled as an electrical malfunction, though it was later discovered to have been arson, caused by one Katherine Argent. Who was also connected to the murder of two of the three Hale survivors six years later.”

Right, because they pinned all of Peter’s murders, and Peter’s own death, on Kate; while at the same time correctly blaming Peter for Kate’s death (supposedly they killed each other in the end). Also, Peter’s still legally dead, and with everything that was going on at the time they never got around to arranging for Cora to recover her identity, so officially she died in the fire.

“Now, while it wouldn’t be the first time that a victim, a survivor of terrible crimes, becomes the perpetrator of even worse ones, the timeline doesn’t make sense.” Hotchner goes on. “According to all possible profiles, if Hale was going to become a killer, it’d have happened years ago. So, why now? And why travel all the way to South America, murder a family of twelve, possibly more, tagging Beacon Hills as his next destination, and then deviate to North Carolina? It makes no sense.”

No, it didn’t. Yet somehow no one before Agent Hotchner seemed to have noticed. Or cared.

“What I believe,” Hotchner’s next words truly surprise Stiles. “Is that either you have a connection to Hale that isn’t in your records.” Because his dad made sure to never note that it was two kids that first accused Derek of murder. “Something beyond having been born in the same town, and your father, Sheriff Stilinski, being the one to handle the case of the Hale Fire, or…”

“Wait,” Stiles blurts out, not quite able to help himself. “You keep talking about the Hale Fire. But what about the others?”

“Others?” Hotchner clearly wasn’t expecting that.

“Yes, all the other fires Kate Argent caused, that she used to murder p-families in over half a dozen towns, both before and after the Hale Fire?” Stiles elaborates.

Stiles can tell immediately that Agent Hotchner has no idea what Stiles is talking about, which should not be possible. Stiles knows, because he’s the one who first researched things, who found out that Kate Argent was responsible for a total of at least nine fires, most (but not all) after the one in Beacon Hills. Also, there were at least two fires that didn’t make the list, as the MO wasn’t exactly the same, and they had fewer victims, compared to the rest. Though personally, Stiles suspects that had less to do with Kate’s intentions and more with her lack of experience, as they were probably her very first.

So, Stiles knows the fires happened, and he researched the matter until he found a way to tie almost all of them together, and to Kate Argent (and to a lesser degree, the rest of the Argents). Also, while not all the information might have been acquired legally, when he passed it to his father, he made sure that everything was above-board before sending it to the FBI. Even if Kate was believed to be dead back then, the dead deserved justice, and the Argents deserved to pay for their crimes. And yeah, the latter never happened, but Stiles always thought that that was due to Argent (one or more) making some sort of deal with the authorities and paying people off to keep things quiet or whatever, not because there was never a case!

“Fuck,” Stiles curses, pressing the base of his palms against his face. “You have moles… well, of course you have them, how else would fucking-Kate have managed to get into the FBI, but you have even more moles. Placed high enough… or perhaps it’s a matter of place, geographically, rather than in rank? In any case, somewhere that they made sure the file my father and I compiled about the other fires never reached you and…”

Stiles trails off. At first because he can see the changing expression in the agent’s face. He might or might not fully believe what the younger man is saying, but he’s certainly taking the matter seriously enough to be considering the implications, and it’s clear he’s as shocked and horrified as Stiles himself. The other reason though, is that Stiles’s magic is suddenly screaming at him. It’s… ever since things happened and his spark pretty much exploded his magic has become far more than he expected it to be back when he first learned to lay mountain ash barriers. Back then he had ‘feelings’, instincts that screamed at him when something was gonna go wrong. He knew something wasn’t right with Peter, even when everyone talked about him being in a coma; he knew Lydia not turning had to mean something, knew that Matt was creepy and dangerous. Granted, he didn’t always know what to do about the feelings he got, but that was more due to how little he knew about the shadow world, than his instincts being wrong. Since… since things changed, he gets far more than ‘feelings’. Like right now, his magic is essentially screaming at him DANGER, with all caps and in bright, neon, colors… danger coming from the direction of the observation room…

“SHIT!” Stiles yells.

He’s moving almost before his body has processed everything. The handcuffs fall off with a twist of his wrists, and then he’s using his hands to somersault right over the table, landing right on top of the shocked agent (who’s just realizing that Stiles freed himself, and the ease with which he did it). Stiles manages to twist in the air just enough to keep the agent from banging his head against the concrete floor, at the same time the two men half-roll half-slide across the room until slamming against the drywall right under the window into the observation room.

Or rather, where the window used to be. Right as the two men slam against the wall, glass rains over them, some even managing to leave small cuts and abrasions on their hands and faces. The glass comes from the broken window, courtesy of the bullets fired right from the observation room, and to where Stiles was sitting just a few seconds earlier.

Hotchner is clearly beyond surprised by the developments. He makes to sit up and Stiles manages to react just in time, pulling him back down just in time to save him from the next hail of bullets. With nothing more than gestures and faces Stiles manages to convince Hotchner to hand him his back-up weapon. Then Stiles waits, until an arm extends past the edge of the window, twisting; clearly the shooter guessed where they must be. Stiles doesn’t give him the chance to start shooting, taking his own shot first, his bullet hitting the man right in his hand. There’s a cry of pain, and the spasm forces the man to drop his weapon.

Agent Hotchner takes advantage of this to get on his feet, service weapon in hand, pointed straight at the man in the observation room. The man is short, with salt-and-pepper hair and gray eyes that hold so much hate; though Stiles doesn’t need to see it, to see them, to know it, he can feel it.

“Don’t move,” Hotchner orders authoritatively.

Stiles goes to say something when two doors are slammed open almost in tandem as the rest of the people in the facility rush to them. On the door to the observation room stands a black man, dressed in black, gun in hand and pointed straight at the one who just tried to kill him and Hotchner. At the same time, two people show up at the door to the interrogation room. The man is brunette with light tanned skin, has a hand on his gun, though it’s still at his waist; the woman is a redhead, with very light skin, and she has her own handgun out and pointing straight at…

There’s no time. Not to pull up the back-up gun, not even to call a warning. Stiles’s magic reacts almost before his own brain does, he raises a hand at the same time the woman drops to the floor. This in turn makes the brunette man instantly pull out his own gun and point it straight at Stiles, who barely manages to keep his magic from dropping him as well as he lets the small revolver fall and raises both hands, not even trying to move from his position, half-sitting half-lying down on the floor.

“Put the gun down, Rawson,” Hotchner orders as he takes his eyes off the injured attacker, trusting the other agent to have him under control.

It turns out to be a mistake, and not, at the same time, as the injured man pulls out another gun and goes to shoot Hotchner. However, the other two men happen to be faster, as they shoot him down before he can fire a single shot.

Stiles reacts instinctively, throwing himself fully back down and covering his head with his hands as best he can. He doesn’t move from there at all until he’s pretty sure no one else will be shooting.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath.

This whole situation is such a shit-show, nothing is going how he planned it today! Then again, he probably should have expected that. Nothing has gone as planned pretty much since summer (and the internship) began!

xXx

Stiles brushed two fingers over each of his wrist tattoos as he finished getting into the tactical gear on the night of the FBI Op in North Carolina. His triskele tattoo was itching somewhat… or something else that his brain was parsing as itching anyway. Stiles had no idea if that was related to Derek’s proximity, or the danger he was in, what with him quite possibly soon to be walking into a hunter gathering and all. A quick glance confirmed that his tattoos were properly invisible and he turned around, accidentally crashing into someone else (one of the actual agents) as they walked by, slamming a magazine into place in one of their guns. Stiles stumbled back and sneezed.

“Look where you’re going!” a female voice snapped, though the agent didn’t so much as turn to look at him, really.

“Stilinski!” someone called from the other side of the room. “Are you sick?”

“No sir!” Stiles replied automatically.

And he wasn’t, really. Then why…? He realized what made him sneeze a moment later, turning just in time to see the end of a dark-red ponytail and black combat boots as the agent left the room.

Wolfsbane. That agent had wolfsbane on her, either in the gun, or somewhere else on her person… So it’d seem a potential hunter gathering wasn’t the only danger Derek was going into.

It’s close to two hours before Hotchner approaches Stiles again. The younger man has no doubt that, aside from dealing with the body of the dead agent, they must have already interrogated the redhead that tried to kill them as well. He’s curious what answers they might have gotten, but even more so, what questions they thought to ask. Just how much does the FBI, does the government, know of the supernatural?

Before the summer Stiles would have sworn there was no way anyone in the government could possibly know about the ‘things that go bump in the night’. Agent McCall certainly seemed to know nothing of it all. And yet… and yet there was that agent, the night of the Op, who had wolfsbane on her, and now the two that tried to off him! Like his father used to say: one is an accident, two a coincidence, but three… Also, if he counts Kate that makes four! At least!

They’re not in an interrogation room anymore, but in the peninsula that separates the kitchen from the living area of the safe-house. Stiles isn’t even wearing handcuffs! He’s just sitting there, with a cup of half-decent coffee in front of him (he prefers tea, but makes due). He’s not sure if the change in treatment stems from his saving Agent Hotchner, or if they just decided that there was no point to put him in handcuffs and everything else again when he got free so easily the last time. Truth be told, he never intended to show-off that particular skill of his. It wasn’t part of the plan. But then again, the plan went to hell when that agent tried to kill them!

Hotchner isn’t alone when he approaches, another agent is with him. Younger, blue-eyed blonde. Stiles guesses she cannot be even a decade older than him, probably even less than that. She’s carrying a tablet and even several hard-copy files with her.

“Hello, I’m Agent Ashley Seaver.” She almost drops the files as she introduces herself.

Stiles manages to keep a straight face, but just barely.

“Intern Mieczyslaw Stilinski, but please, call me Stiles.” He’s sure she must already know his name, but it’s only polite.

The two men wait while Seaver takes a seat, files splayed in front of her, tablet in her hands. For a moment she looks around at a loss, before smiling brightly and pulling a stylus out of the messy bun she pulled her hair into at some point. It’s… Stiles smiles and can barely keep himself from laughing, the agent is reminding him of Kira for some reason (he misses his pack…).

“What do you know of Garrow? And of Dumont?” she questions, stylus poised over the tablet.

Stiles blinks a couple of times, clearly at a loss.

“Agents Frederick Garrow and Eliza Dumont?” Seaver clarifies. “The people who tried to kill you and Hotch in the interrogation room?”

“Ah… nothing at all,” Stiles answers promptly.

That’s clearly not the answer she was expecting. Either of them. And it’s not even a lie. He didn’t know either of those people. Well… it mostly isn’t a lie. While it’s true he didn’t know them, he does know the name Dumont. It’s the name of a Hunter Clan, one that hails originally from the South of France, on its border with Spain. After moving to America, they established themselves in Canada. Eastern Canada is considered Dumont territory (much like the north of Mexico, and even the parts of the American states that touched the border with that country, is Calavera territory). More importantly though, Dumont was the maiden name of one Victoria Argent…

He supposes there’s a chance that there are other Dumonts, and not just the hunters, but really, what are the odds of someone with that name trying to kill him, right when he’s talking about the crimes of the Argents? Crimes the FBI should, yet clearly isn’t, aware of…

“Then why did they try to kill you?” Seaver looks more than a little confused.

How is he supposed to answer that question? He’s seen how well the whole ‘werewolves are real!’ spiel goes with people (normal, rational people). How can he begin to explain things to the two agents without them thinking him nuts? Or believing that he’s working on some kind of insanity defense?

The last thing he expects, are the next words to come out of Agent Hotchner’s mouth:

“Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, the truth.”

Chapter VI. 2015 – Part II

If it weren’t so convenient for him, Stiles might have considered writing a formal complaint to the FBI about how easy it was to slip away from the Supervisory Agents in charge of the current field op. As it was, Stiles was seriously considering doing it anyway.

He was right of course, Derek was in danger of more than just a potential hunter meeting. A lot more. Stiles managed to find him right as the red-haired agent shot at him (with wolfsbane bullets!). His spark acted almost all on its own in defense of the wolf. Which was how he ended with a deep graze to his bicep, and not a bullet buried in his chest!

“Sourwolf, get down!” Stiles called.

Derek reacted automatically, which helped him avoid the next couple of shots. Stiles magicking the agent unconscious before she could fire a fifth.

“Stiles?!” Derek jumped back to his feet the moment the attacker was down. “Is that you?” He sniffed, clearly not having recognized Stiles in the all-black clothes and tactical gear. “What the hell are you doing here?!”

Stiles was about to answer when he sensed the coming threat.

“No time for that sourwolf,” he snapped instead. “Come with me.”

Surprisingly enough, Derek did.

Or maybe not so surprising. Regardless of what he might have once said, Derek had been trusting Stiles, with his life, and the lives of others (even his sister) for a long time…

Stiles was thankful that, because of how his brain worked (and the habits he acquired after three years of running around with werewolves, hunters and away from all kinds of nasties) he’d pretty much memorized the plans of the whole compound where the meeting was taking place. They weren’t precise, as he realized the first time they found a door where there was supposed to be a dead-end… but at least they weren’t entirely lost.

They’d almost made it to a wide window on the east side of the building, closer to the underbrush, as well as far and away from all three entrances (including the one that hadn’t been in the plans the FBI had access to) and all the FBI vehicles and back-up, when a couple of hunters unexpectedly found them. After rounding a corner that shouldn’t have been there! Derek immediately threw himself at one of them, but the other knew to keep his distance. He pulled out a gun, big caliber, and lined a shot while Derek was busy grappling with the other hunter. Stiles was too far away, and with Derek in the way, to be able to use his magic without affecting them too (and while knocking all of them out wouldn’t have necessarily been a bad thing… he did not have enough power to drop three people at the same time! Especially when he could sense that the man hanging back had some kind of protection on him. Which left him with but one option…

Stiles might have been awful that one time he tried Allison’s crossbow, but then again, bows (of any kind) weren’t exactly his weapon of choice. Guns on the other hand…

The one thing he did not plan for, was for the hunter’s weapon to discharge as Stiles shot them. The bullet miraculously managed to miss both Derek, and the hunter he’d just taken down, instead hitting Stiles, in the foot of all places!

Also, it turned out that the window Stiles had been planning on using as their exit was the hunter’s own escape plan, something one of the Agents noticed, and the team outside was essentially picking them up one by one. So in the end Stiles had to improvise, after pilfering a jacket from one of the downed hunters and getting Derek to put it on, they went out the main door, Stiles using just a tiny bit of his spark to ensure that none of the Agents would take too close a look at them.

All in all, to say things didn’t go as planned, would be putting it lightly.

Agent Hotchner knows about the supernatural.

An hour after he pronounced those fateful words (Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, the truth) Stiles is still trying to get his head around things. Those words aren’t just a Buddhist proverb, they’re Stiles’s mantra, words he always uses to meditate; they’re on his webpage, and he tends to use them as a code-phrase when meeting with new members of his network. And Agent Hotchner knows those words, what’s more, he knows the importance they have to Stiles. He knows all this because he’s been to Stiles’s webpage, because Stiles has helped him (unknowingly) or rather, has helped his son.

Months ago Stiles got a message in his webpage, a request for help, from a young, budding-magic user. He wanted to know how to ward his home. Claimed to be afraid because he was so new to it all, and his father wasn’t involved in the supernatural, and the risk he was in… simply put, Stiles empathized with the kid. So rather than just trying to explain how to ward a home, he offered to send him ward-stones (also, depending on how new he was to it all, and what kind of magic-user he was exactly, his warding might not have been strong enough, and Stiles didn’t want to risk that). He got a PO box number, which was just fine with him. He created the ward stones, simple, easy to activate, but strong enough for the kid and his father to be safe.

Turns out that kid was none other than Jack Hotchner, Agent Hotchner’s only son. The same who witnessed a hunter killing a couple of shape-shifters, and that made him very afraid, for both himself and his dad. Especially since his mother was killed by a (very human) serial-killer years ago. Stiles didn’t know about him witnessing a crime, but apparently after getting the ward-stones and being fairly sure of their safety, the kid (pre-teen, actually) revealed the whole thing to his dad. That was what led to Agent Hotchner leaving the BAU, supposedly to go into witness protection.

“Just how many people in the FBI know about the supernatural?” Stiles blurts out eventually.

“Not many,” Seaver answers honestly. “Even the Red Cell team, the ones currently stationed in this safe-house, do not know about the supernatural. Some might suspect a few things, but not all. In the words of Agent Rawson: ‘not their division’.”

Stiles snorts, having a pretty good idea where Agent Rawson got those words from.

Seaver smiles as well and just for a moment there’s something in her eyes…

“You’re supernatural yourself!” Stiles realizes abruptly.

Once he’s said it, it becomes very obvious. He wonders if he missed it because he was much more focused on the hunters, if she has some sort of protection on her (though he should have been able to sense at least that!) or if he’s been that distracted… Whichever the cause might be, it’s dangerous. Also, those green-eyes almost give him flashbacks…

“I’m a werejaguar,” the blonde reveals, flashing green eyes and showing fang for a moment. “Got turned a few years back, during a mission to the Nevada border. There was human trafficking involved, I offered to infiltrate myself, ended up in some abandoned temple in the middle of nowhere in the Mexican desert.”

“La Iglesia…” Stiles breathes out in realization.

Well, either that or another similar place.

“When an agent in-the-know realized what had happened I was offered help, training to learn control, and a transfer to the Grimm Division.” She giggles a bit. “Well, it’s not actually called that but…”

“No, I, I get it,” Stiles assures her.

“You seemed to have a rather… visceral reaction, to Seaver’s revelation.” Hotchner points out, because of course he’s been carefully studying Stiles, every single word and reaction he has.

“Flashback,” Stiles answers honestly, because what else can he do?

So he tells them about Kate Argent. About her survival, the Calaveras’ attempts to get her to kill herself, her repeated attempts to kill the surviving Hales. And her final death in none other than Beacon Hills, just a few days ago.

“Are you sure she’s dead?” Seaver asks somewhat bluntly. “Because if I’ve discovered anything since…” she waves a hand around, showing off her claws for a moment. “this, it’s that we shifters are much sturdier than humans. A lot.”

“I’m sure.” He is. 100%. “After Christopher Argent told us what had happened with his father and sister, we went looking. Found her body, as well as Gerard Argent’s, in the armory. I also managed to track down the security video, which made pretty clear what happened there. Seems that Gerard is enough of a psychopathic, hypocritical bastard, that it’s perfectly alright for him to become a shifter, but not for anyone else, his own daughter included, to do so. He shot her with yellow wolfsbane, and Kate was either too insane, or too angry. Instead of fleeing, of seeking a cure, she stayed, mauled him to death. Which also means that she died right there as well.”

Stiles exhales. It’s not that he regrets those deaths. He really, really doesn’t. In some ways he even sees it as karma, for those two to have taken each other out. At the same time, it seems almost… too easy. There’s a part of him (the vicious, cruel part, the part of him that’s more in tune with the ‘void’ than he’s usually comfortable admitting) that thinks they should have suffered a lot more, paid for all their crimes, before being allowed to rest in death.

“I dealt with their bodies personally,” Stiles adds. “Burned them to ash, which I then dumped into a couple of rivers,” to ensure they’d end up as scattered and far away from Beacon Hills as possible. “Those two definitely aren’t coming back this time.”

Never again, not on his watch.

Seaver blinks, clearly not having expected that. Though Stiles isn’t sure if she’s more surprised by the vitriol clear in his voice, or the thoroughness with which he handled the bodies of the two Argents. He supposes it doesn’t really matter in the end.

They took the highway south, at Stiles’s insistence, leaving North Carolina and crossing South Carolina, making it all the way to Georgia before the FBI could start closing highways looking for them. It took them a bit away from the most direct route to Beacon Hills, but that was okay. Scott and the others still hadn’t called them, not to warn them, or to ask for help, and Stiles really didn’t want to stop and ponder what that might mean, exactly.

The human also insisted on them spending the rest of the day (after the hours spent driving south, slow enough not to call undue attention onto themselves, and taking turns and doubling back a few times to confuse anyone who might have tried to follow them, just in case) and the night, in a hotel on the limits of some town called Augusta, in Georgia. Derek either fully agreed with him, or was at least still thrown enough by recent events not to fight him on it.

While Derek took a shower, Stiles pulled off his boots, checking on his badly injured foot. It was just fine. Not even a scar left. In fact, if it weren’t for the quite clear hole on the top of his shoe, the bloodied sock and the bullet still embedded on the thick sole, he might have thought he hallucinated the whole injury. But he didn’t.

“Are you alright?” Derek’s question took him completely by surprise.

“Yes, fine, I…” Stiles trailed off as he actually looked up and saw Derek.

He really wasn’t expecting to see him standing there, just outside the bathroom, in nothing but a towel. A towel so small he had to hold it up and it still barely covered anything at all! Really, were the gods trying to test him or something? With all that damp, golden skin on display, those muscles, all that hair, and… and… Stiles was gonna die!

“Stiles!” Derek yelled at him, clearly having noticed the human ogling him.

Curiously enough, he did not look offended, or mocking. Rather he looked… interested?! To say all the blood abruptly went south for Stiles would have been… quite accurate, actually.

Once (relatively) certain that Agents Hotchner and Seaver can be trusted, Stiles reveals what happened after the failed Op in North Carolina.

“As you know, I’ve got magic,” he states somewhat bluntly. “I used just a bit as we were leaving the compound where the op was taking place. Not to hurt anyone, just a sort-of ‘notice-me-not’. To ensure no one would try to stop us.”

“We found several people dead inside.” Hotchner points out. “Several died of what could have been called an animal attack, except there were no animals in the compound. One man though, found near a wide window on the east side of the building, he was shot in the head. According to ballistics the bullet came from the gun assigned to you.”

“I killed him,” Stiles doesn’t see the point in trying to deny it. “He and his companion, who I’m sure you must have found not ten feet away, with his throat torn out, were trying to kill us. We defended ourselves. Since I’m not a shifter, I used what I had available.”

“Why run away?” Seaver wants to know. “I mean, if you knew Hale to be innocent…”

“And who would have believed me?” Stiles retorts. “You have enough people infiltrated, high enough in the ranks, that they managed to either undo an investigation into multiple murders, across the country, or simply stop it from ever happening, officially. We’re talking about an unsub that would qualify as a family annihilator, with fire as a weapon of choice, and whose modus operandi included seducing, raping and torturing teenagers!”

Seaver’s eyes go wider and wider the more Stiles speaks, but he’s not done yet.

“And that’s not all,” Stiles continues. “Kate might have been heading that, but there’s no way she alone could have done it all. Just in the Hale Fire, she involved at least three local arsonists that we’re aware of, and paid off the insurance inspector to keep him from reporting it as arson. How many more people did she recruit in every city she killed? How many more authorities were either bribed, blackmailed or if they refused to cooperate, killed? The Argents, all of them, have rap-sheets miles long and you’ve done nothing about any of them. You even do business with them!”

Yes, the problem was big, bigger than any of them knew what to do with.

“What happened in Beacon Hills?” Hotchner makes an effort to get them all back to the main topic.

Stiles takes a deep breath before jumping ahead, starting the next part of the story with his and Derek’s arrival to the shipyard. They’ve already talked about Gerard and Kate, so there’s no need to go back to them. The agents seem honestly surprised when hearing just how many people in BH know about the supernatural.

“It’s sort of an open secret nowadays,” Stiles shrugs. “Between the deadpool and the chimeras, and then the Beast… it would be harder to say who hasn’t seen something by now.” He exhales. “It hasn’t always gone well. Like… I knew Monroe was gonna be trouble. And I get that she was scared, and Scott wasn’t the kindest when rescuing her, but that’s no reason for her to go all crazy hunter on us! We only just got rid of Gerard! And now there’s her! And either Gerard found her, or she found him, but clearly she’s running around with their resources and…” he trails off, pressing his palms to his face and then running both hands back and down, half carding through his hair, half pulling on it in clear frustration. “It’s a mess.”

“Monroe?” Seaver asks, because that’s a new name.

“Yeah, Tamora Monroe.” Stiles nods. “She was the guidance counselor in Beacon Hills High, during my senior year. And I’m really gonna have to remember to question the school-board if they screen their new hires at all. Because between her, Blake, Morrell, the Chemist, and all the freaking Argents that kept getting jobs there, some without even being qualified! Makes one wonder if they’re just waiting for us all to get killed or something.” Stiles goes into a rant without quite noticing.

Once again Seaver is all wide eyed. Hotchner isn’t quite as obvious, though it’s clear he’s shocked. Things are much worse than he expected, in ways he didn’t imagine.

“I suppose Monroe used to be pretty normal, before almost getting killed by the Beast and all that…” Stiles stops to ponder on that. “Though shouldn’t an inclination for becoming a murderous psychopath show up in psych evals or whatever?”

And on that topic, just what sort of things showed up on his psych evals? Has the FBI realized how nuts he is? Did he ever have a chance at the job or were they just waiting to cart him off to an institution from the start?

“And where is this Monroe now?” Hotchner wants to know.

Beside him Seaver is typing quickly on the tablet, probably requesting a deep background check on Tamora Monroe.

“No idea,” Stiles admits. “Like, we know she’s alive. She was forced to run away after her latest attack on Beacon Hills failed. And boy, was she mad! Which, understandable considering that it was her second try at killing us all. She probably thought that with Gerard’s direct backing, and since she wasn’t depending on the Anuk-ite to do the work for her this time around, it’d be easier.”

“I’m sorry, the Anuk-what?” Seaver interrupts.

“Anuk-ite,” Stiles corrects. “Ancient shapeshifter, creature of disharmony. It showed up close to the end of our senior year. Had the power to like, sort of latch onto people’s fears, and make them much, much greater. It also seemed to make it more likely that people would react violently to that fear.”

“Oh my god!” Seaver’s horrified. “How did you deal with that?”

“By not letting it manifest in the first place.” Stiles answers grimly. “See, the Anuk-ite apparently was imprisoned by the Ghost Riders for a while, and after getting free it… split? Or something. It took over two teenagers, one a human, a transfer student at the high-school, another a young beta werewolf from a neighboring pack.”

“Took over?” Seaver sounds almost afraid to ask.

“Killed them, took their shape and essentially went on living their lives,” Stiles clarifies bluntly. “From what we learned, if the two halves had ever fused together, they’d have formed the Anuk-ite and that… that wouldn’t have been good.”

“How did you stop it from happening?” Hotchner asks, though he already suspects the answer.

“I killed one half before it could combine.”

Yeah, that was pretty much the answer Hotchner expected.

Sex with Derek Hale was absolutely fantastic. (Best of his life, really!). The issue was what happened later. Or rather, what didn’t.

They just… didn’t talk about it. At all.

Stiles tried to strike up a conversation on the matter, time and again during their trip west, and nothing. Derek barely said a word the whole way back (which, considering that the trip took several days, even with the both of them taking turns driving, and barely even stopping to sleep at all, was excruciating).

And then they made it to Beacon Hills, made it to the shipyard following several clues and their respective supernatural senses, just in the nick of time to save everyone before they got themselves killed (Stiles won’t lie, he wasn’t sad to see Deucalion dead). And in between the regrouping at the vet clinic, the confrontations with Monroe’s many hunters, both experienced and not, throughout the city, and then rushing to the Argent armory to make sure Gerard and Kate were truly dead…

“I’m glad they’re dead, don’t take me wrong,” Stiles muttered as they were dumping the second half of the ashes in the river. “But there’s a part of me that cannot help but think it was too… easy.”

“Easy?” Derek scoffed. “You think this was easy?”

“Not on our side!” Stiles hurries to clarify. “On theirs. There’s a part of me that thinks they should have had to, I don’t know, suffer more, enough to actually pay for their crimes.”

“No amount of suffering could have ever been enough for them to pay for all the lives they took, all the lives they destroyed,” Derek stated grimly, then shook his head. “And making them suffer wouldn’t have made you feel better, Stiles.”

“No, probably not.” Stiles knew, deep down, that he was right.

With the ashes all gone, Stiles did a simple spell to clean himself up, and cleanse the place, wanting to ensure nothing of the Argents, or their evil would remain. Once satisfied, he turned to make his way back to Derek and the Camaro he’d apparently been driving since South America. He waited until they were in front of his house, with the car turned off… The danger had passed, at least for the time being, and he didn’t think the loft was in any state for Derek to stay there. He was kinda hoping that the sourwolf would agree to spend the night, even if they didn’t have sex, Stiles would love to just… just sleep with him. And maybe afterwards he could work on convincing him to go back to the East Coast with him? Stiles knew he’d have to talk to the FBI at some point, hopefully to salvage what he could of his career, perhaps even to find out what ever happened with the Argent investigation, and maybe tell them about Monroe? Once they’d cleared Derek’s name maybe he might even be able to convince the sourwolf to stick around for a while…

All those plans went up in smoke however, when Stiles got out of the car, and Derek didn’t.

“Hey, I was thinking…” He began.

And that’s as far as he got, because next thing he knew Derek was twisting the key in the ignition and speeding down the street. It was shocking, it was upsetting and… Stiles didn’t understand.

At first he thought it was like the whole thing about Lydia. When things first started getting all hot and heavy back in Georgia Derek had pulled back. Believing that Stiles and Lydia were still together, and not wanting to get in the way of that. But Stiles immediately told him that it wasn’t like that between the two of them, that they hadn’t really been together since before she even left for Boston at the end of the summer, two years prior. They hadn’t even had sex the last time she visited him. Yes, they shared a bed, but that was about comfort, not sex. Derek seemed to understand that, to accept it, even like it; and proceeded to kiss Stiles senseless (it was fantastic!). So why wouldn’t he even talk to Stiles afterwards?

What did Stiles do wrong?

Some say there’s more than one version to every story (what he said, what she said, and what really happened). Stiles finds that’s especially true where the shadow-world is involved. There’s always the true version of the story, and the one those that aren’t ‘in the know’ are meant to believe.

Officially, he’s been dropped from the FBI internship and the program altogether. Since he and one other intern (a grad student in her last year at the University of Virginia) are the only ones still at school, there’s no need to do anything there. Stiles will go back to GWU and finish his double-program just as planned. And then he’ll join the FBI, in the, appropriately nicknamed, Grimm Division.

Things are moving already, set in motion before the day ended. Until now, the Grim Division, while existing, wasn’t a big thing. For the most part, because while all members are aware of the supernatural, none of them really have the connections necessary to be able to intervene in most situations before someone else handles things. Until Stiles. They didn’t see this as a problem, exactly. Believing they could keep their group for just the most dire of circumstances. Until Stiles revealed how dire so many situations already have been, and still are, and the FBI didn’t know. They didn’t know because people placed within their organization ensured they wouldn’t.

So, starting on Monday, Aaron Hotchner will officially go back to active status, as the new Unit Chief of the Shadow Crimes Unit. SSA Ashley Seaver will serve as his second in command and Stiles? While technically he’s still a student, he’s also now an FBI cadet and Hotch’s new protege.

“If the hunters aren’t doing their job, we’ll do it for them.” Hotchner announces when plans get mostly finalized, at the end of the day.

“And we’ll make sure they pay for their own crimes, same as everybody else.” Seaver adds for good measure, a hint of fang peeking through.

Stiles has to wonder what kind of experiences she might have had with hunters thus far; even if she might not have known who or what they were, exactly. Then again, even if she hasn’t had any, there’s still the fact that hunters infiltrated the FBI, either complicated or utterly ruined a number of cases and investigations, and tried to kill her boss! Yeah, they all have more than enough reasons to be upset at any and all hunters.

First order of business: the Argents. Gerard and Kate might be dead (and Victoria and Allison as well), but that doesn’t mean that their crimes just died with them. Their victims deserve justice, the survivors deserve closure, and the Argents… they will pay!

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