.

Four - Flares Where the Sun Hits

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It's freezing at first. But after a while, being outside isn't so bad. As long as Stiles keeps moving, his body creates enough heat to keep him at least passably warm. And the snow's mostly gone now anyway, though patches of it linger under bristles and in shady burrows.

Cold as he is, Stiles actually loves being in the woods. He's spent a pretty long time camping out around here—mostly outside of Beacon County, when he could. And of course, that was in between taking odd jobs and scrounging up enough cash for a night or two at a motel. Or spending his days hunched over a library desk, fruitlessly researching ghostly manifestations.

But there's something calming about being back among the trees, where he has to pick his way through the barren undergrowth. A barn owl screeches somewhere in the distance, and something rabbit-small darts through the brush as well.

He strays pretty far from the house, which is probably half an hour behind him at this point. He's not too worried, though: he's gotten good at retracing his steps when he needs to. It's enough just to be somewhere else, to concentrate on what's in front of him instead of what's in his head.

Abruptly, a deep howl emanates from somewhere right beside him, loud and long . On instinct, Stiles jumps into a sprint, putting a few paces between him and the whatever-it-is, but nothing's following him when he trusts himself to glance back. He stops, frowning, and heaves a quick breath.

There's nothing there at all. And no sign of anything that could have made such a loud sound. The quiet sound of chirping comes from the branches overhead, like nothing's disturbed the birds. Except that Stiles knows it happened, that he didn't imagine it. He couldn't have.

Just a vision...hallucination...thing, he realizes, trying to get his heart to slow its furious beating. It's not here now. It's from the past.

But whatever it once was is enough to make him uneasy. There are no wolves in California, and there haven't been for some time. Mountain lions and bears, maybe, but not in this area. And I'm not sure they even make sounds like that, he thinks.

There's a burst of voices from farther off, in a dark thicket of overgrown trees. Stiles hesitates, wondering, before he gingerly clambers over a fallen log to reach the noise. He wants the comfort of company, dead or alive. And more than that, he wants to leave the howl behind him.

He moves slowly, but clumsily—no amount of time in the forest could possibly fix his natural state of ineptitude. But the conversation doesn't taper off at the sound of snapping twigs under his feet. After a moment, he thinks he recognizes one of the voices.

"Did you hear that?" it says in a quiet tone.

"No one's out there, Laur," the other voice returns. "You have to stop being so paranoid."

The trees part to reveal two girls, seated among the sprawling roots of an immense cedar. Laura's dark brows are furrowed as she crosses her legs, frowning. "I wouldn't be paranoid if you'd stop coming out here. God, do you want to get caught?"

The other girl is someone Stiles has never seen before. Definitely not a Hale. She's Laura's age, or maybe a little older—it's always hard for Stiles to tell. An easy smile dances over her lightly tanned face as she leans toward Laura, elbowing her in the side a bit. "You think I can't take care of myself? Or that I can't cover my tracks? Me? "

"It's not that," Laura grumbles, her eyes narrowing. She doesn't move away when the other girl scoots closer, though. "It's just that everyone would kill me if we were caught. Well, you first, then me."

"You think my parents wouldn't kill me?" the girl retorts, though the smile slips from her face this time. "My dad would actually kill me." She closes her mouth instantly, like she hadn't meant to let that out.

Laura looks at her in concern, but the other girl feigns nonchalance, pulling her fingers through her long ringlets of hair. It's a bright blond at the roots and darker at the bottom—probably from long hours in the sun. "Anyway," she says at last, nonchalant, before not-so-subtly stretching her arm and draping it across Laura's shoulders. "It's worth it."

"Ugh, I hate you, Kate," Laura retorts, but she's smiling.

"No, you really don't," the girl replies with a matching smile, and then she leans in to press their lips together.

"Ohhhh my god," Stiles says to himself, wide-eyed. "I was right, it was a date." He watches them make out for a second and then drags his eyes away, like they're real people who might yell at him or something. Well, they were real people, once upon a time. They just aren't here to be offended about it anymore. So maybe Stiles shouldn't care so much about it, but he probably wouldn't want someone watching him make out with anyone after he was dead—like that's an issue, with him being him.

"I'm getting out of here soon," Kate mutters quietly. Stiles turns back to see them staring at each other again, their faces still close.

"What, monster hunting?" Laura asks, pulling away with an ugly twist to her mouth.

"No. Well, yeah. I mean, I'm getting out of here, " Kate replies, gesturing vaguely to the encircling trees. "Here, here. California here. For good."

Laura straightens, slow-rising panic making the motion jerky. "Wait, what?"

"I'm...I can't stay at home anymore. I hate it there. You know I do," Kate replies, watching Laura's face carefully as she quickly hurries on. "And I hate—sleepy Beacon Hills, and all this bullshit that everyone, my whole family, has about...about…"

"Hunting us?" Laura interjects in an accusing tone.

"You know I said I wouldn't hunt you ," Kate retorts coolly. "Just everything else." When Laura continues staring, Kate tilts her chin up and adds, "You knew what you were getting into. I told you about what I was doing, and I tell you—everything. Mostly. But I'm not changing the fact that I'm a hunter for you. It's in my blood. Even if I don't always see eye to eye with my dad on it."

At last, Laura relents, though her gaze is still a little panicked. "But...you're leaving? I don't understand. You don't get along with your family, and I get that. They're complete assholes, so I get it. But—but you're at Cal State now, and you said you liked the whole university vibe, right? So what happened?"

Kate snorts. "Yeah, I liked it for about two seconds. It's a huge place, so I thought I'd find people like me there. But they're just...rich kid rebels without a cause. Throwing up gang signs and then pouring their parents' rum into gas station slurpees. I don't want that. I want someone...I want someone like you. "

Laura's hand is fisted in the fabric of Kate's blouse. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, come with me. We'll go—I don't know. Somewhere real. We've put down some creepy shit together, you and me. We could kick some ass out there."

"Out where? " Laura asks, frustrated.

"I don't know!" Kate exclaims, gesturing wildly. " Any where! It doesn't matter, just not here. "

"Kate, I can't—you're talking crazy. I can't leave my family, everyone...everyone I know is here."

"Not me."

"You will be, if you stay."

Kate's face falls, and a cold fury washes over it almost too quickly to catch. She pulls away from Laura, arms folding across her chest, and it makes her look defensive. Small. "It doesn't matter."

"Kate…"

"No, it doesn't matter. It was just an idea. A stupid one. I knew you wouldn't leave."

"Kate, it's not that I—…go with...but..."

The vision starts to fade, the colors dimming like they always do. The voices disappear next, and then all Stiles is left with is the memory of Kate's frown, and the sorry hunch of her shoulders.

He wonders how old Laura was when the fire happened, though it has to be close in time: it happened five years ago, and Derek's gotta be twenty or a little older, so Laura can't have had much more time to grow up before it all happened.

He wonders if she had time to settle things with her girlfriend before she burned alive in her own house.

Shit, he thinks, ready to move away from the dark path his thoughts have taken. It's definitely time to head back.

With great care, he begins to retrace his steps back through the woods. The sky has grown even more grey, with thick storm clouds that glide quickly overhead. The wind has picked up, bringing swirls of downy flakes and whistling past Stiles's ears. He realizes how cold he is after stopping for so long, and picks up the pace to warm himself back up.

In the distance, there's a long, low howl that's definitely not the wind.

Stiles freezes, wondering what it could be—an auditory hallucination for sure, he reassures himself. (Probably in normal situations, it wouldn't be so reassuring.) But either way, he has to get back to the Hales' place for warmth and safety, so he trods more quickly over the dead grass and leaves.

Further on, a rocky mound absorbs most of his attention as he slows to place his feet carefully on the snow-slick stones. And then there's another noise, this time just on his left—a rustle of leaves.

Before he can freak out, one of Derek's little brothers pops into view right in front of him. This close up, Stiles can make out the similarities to Laura and Derek, especially the mop of dark hair.

"Caleb!" someone yells, and then the other-even-younger-Hale-brother tumbles forward, throwing his arms over the first boy's (Caleb's?) shoulders. "You said I could ride!"

"Oh my godddd ," Caleb groans, though he obediently hooks his arms under his brother's legs and heaves him up, piggyback style. "How do you always forget important stuff, but never stupid stuff like this?"

"You promised , " the younger boy reminds him cheerily. Stiles starts back down the slope, avoiding the wet, snowy patches.

"I guess," Caleb replies, and there's something mischievous in his tone. "But I said you could ride if you can hang on."

Stiles is kinda between careful hops at the moment, so he only catches it out of the corner of his eye. But it happens like this: one moment, there are two vaguely fleshy-colored blobs, and the next, there's a furry, distinctly grey thing just outside his vision. He twists to look, slipping on the stone and falling hard onto the ground.

As he pushes himself up onto his elbows, it's still there: a large grey wolf, as large as Caleb himself was just a second ago. On his back is the brother, squealing excitedly like this happens all the time.

Stiles watches open-mouthed as wolf-Caleb (right? right ?) pads around the clearing, trotting around just slow enough for his human little brother to hang on.

"What the fucking fuck," Stiles says, scrambling to his feet. He keeps an eye on the two of them until they sweep into the undergrowth farther off. "That's...no. What?"

It's impossible. It must be an actual hallucination, not a vision. Because otherwise, that would mean...what, that werewolves are real? That at least one of the Hale brothers was a werewolf? And that at the very least, the other Hales must have known (because let's face it, how good is a ten-year-old kid at keeping secrets like that)?

He's breathing fast, too fast. He can't have a panic attack, not alone out here in the woods. Squeezing his eyes shut, he focuses his attention on his breathing and not on the huge, toothy wolf he just saw. Four seconds in, four seconds out. Four seconds in, four seconds out.

From somewhere behind him comes a quiet sound of movement. Stiles whirls around, expecting the wolf to be back—but it's only Derek again, standing a few paces away. "Hey. You've been gone a while."

Stiles inhales, then exhales slowly one more time. "I'd be better if you guys would stop sneaking up on me. This is like, Beauty and the Beast or something, with the snow rescue, except you aren't saving me from wolves (kinda), and/or keeping me captive in your house. So...not really like that at all."

There's something like concern on Derek's face as he moves closer. "Your head's bleeding."

Stiles touches his fingers to his forehead, and they come back dark with blood. "Oh. Yeah, I fell." He wipes it off and into his hair a little.

"Okay," Derek murmurs slowly, like he's trying not to scare off a frightened animal. He's wearing the leather jacket, at least. Though Stiles wonders, nonsensically, if Derek's only doing it to placate him.

And then, abruptly, he wonders what Derek knows. If he knows about his brother. If he is like his brother. If he and Peter are like his brother. If that means they like to eat idiot humans who wander through the snow in the middle of winter.

"Your heart's beating way too fast," Derek mutters, and then he pauses. "I mean, you look upset or something, like your heart's beating fast."

Stiles looks at him confusedly. "What?"

"Were you lost?"

"No, I wasn't lost, " Stiles retorts, weirdly offended. "I can figure out how to get there and back."

Derek raises his hands again, palms out in a gesture of both surrender and surprise. "Look, like I said, you were gone a while. That's all." He's staring at Stiles as if trying to decide if he is, in fact, an idiot.

Yeah, just a hunch, but Derek's probably not going to eat him. Peter might, but there's really no telling.

"I just heard something moving in the woods," Stiles explains, and it's not even a lie. "I freaked out a little."

Derek frowns, his eyes scanning the trees around them. They seem to glint again, in the same way Peter's had before. "I don't think anything's still out there," he replies warily, "but we should get inside just in case."

"Okay," Stiles agrees. Despite everything, he turns back toward the Hale House. This is the part of the movie when I'd be screaming at the dude to run away, he thinks.

But his instincts say to follow Derek. And so he does.

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"You're a really bad patient," Derek informs Stiles, who's fidgeting almost too much to let him clean the shallow head wound. They're sitting in the living room, Stiles on the sofa and Derek perched on the coffee table. Stiles is trying very hard not to notice how close they are, how their knees brush against each other.

"I told you I could do it myself," Stiles grumbles, though he is trying to keep still.

Derek ignores this. "Hold that to your forehead," he orders, getting to his feet as he pushes lightly on the bandage. "And press down."

Stiles obeys, and Derek pops out of the room and into the kitchen for a second. "Lift up," Derek says when he returns, and before Stiles can object, he's pressing a band-aid in place.

"Lame," Stiles gripes, though he makes no move to take it off.

"Infections are lamer," Derek retorts with amusement. He huffs something that sounds like a laugh. "You're lucky we had all that stuff. I can't remember the last time we had to use it here. Years, probably."

"What, you mean there have been zero workplace incidents here? A thousand days since the last accident, or whatever those signs say?"

"Guess I'm good at what I do."

Stiles shrugs. He's bouncing his left knee with a nervous energy, and it takes conscious effort to make himself stop.

"Listen," Derek begins suddenly, frowning down at him. "I wanted to...apologize. For what I said before."

"What do you mean?"

"You were right. I don't know what things are like between you and your dad. And it's not my place to...I don't know, project my feelings about my family onto yours. If you say you don't want to go back, then that's all there is."

Stiles blinks, taken aback. "I mean," he fumbles, "you weren't... wrong. Me and my dad are close. Or we used to be. And I do want to go back...it's just so messy. And I don't think I can deal with that right now. Or be there right now."

Derek nods resolutely. "Okay. That's fine, too."

"Okay," Stiles parrots.

They sit there awkwardly for a minute. Stiles taps his thumb against his thigh.

"I was—"

"Do you think—"

Stiles fights back a smile. "You first, dude."

Derek straightens. "I was thinking, since it's supposed to get pretty cold tonight, that we could build a fire if you want."

Stiles blinks. "A fire?" There's a fireplace here in the living room, but he thought it wasn't finished: some of the bricks are missing, with exposed concrete behind.

Derek sees the glance and adds, "The rest is just decorative, but it's functional. And I brought in some wood."

"Oh my god," Stiles says fervently. "You're my actual hero today."

"So the whole head-bandaging thing…?"

"Totally pales in comparison, yeah," he grins.

Derek rolls his eyes, but he's smiling as he gets up and shuffles over to start the fire, making a kindling base for a single log of firewood. Stiles watches him curiously, wondering how he knows so much stuff, if it's just him and Peter around. "I guess you guys don't use this often?" he wonders aloud.

"No," Derek agrees. "We've never really needed it. We're pretty warm-blooded."

"Huh. Even when, uh…?"

"Yeah, even when everyone else was around. It was always kind of a decorative thing. We had a fire for Christmas and New Year's, but otherwise it just sat empty."

When the first flames begin to catch onto the log, Stiles finds himself tugged toward the heat like something's physically pulled him. He lowers himself onto the outer hearth beside Derek, unable to keep a satisfied sigh from escaping.

Derek looks at him, amused again, as he pokes the fire iron into the kindling. "What were you going to say, before?"

"Oh. Right. Uh, feel free to say no, or whatever. I get that it's gonna be weird. But do you think you could tell me about your family? What they were like, and all that?"

Derek stops moving, arm extended toward the flames. After a moment he slowly pulls the poker out and drops it back into place beside the outer panel. "Yeah. I guess I could…"

"I'm just being curious. Or well, nosy , really. So you can totally tell me to get lost. I won't be offended."

Derek frowns. "No, actually...I think it would be nice to talk about them a little. If you want. And—actually, wait here a second." He stands, walking out of the room and down the hall that leads to his bedroom. Stiles takes the opportunity to pull one of the throw blankets over his shoulders, and by the time he's settled back into place, Derek has returned with a thick book in his hands.

"We don't have too much from before the fire," Derek explains, and as he settles down, Stiles realizes he's holding a laminated photo album. "But a week before, we had a birthday party for my cousin Hailey. Aunt Senna took about a billion pictures, which we all teased her about, of course. But anyway, she sent them off to be developed, so they weren't here when…" he opens the cover with great care. "So these are the only photos we have."

Stiles pulls the blanket closer and leans in without touching it, feeling almost like he's been trusted with a sacred relic. "I'm sorry," Stiles murmurs finally. "I can't imagine…" he trails off, shaking his head. A glance at Derek's face gives him nothing. "Who are they?" he asks, though he recognizes many of the faces already.

"This is Hailey," Derek begins steadily, pointing to a girl with the dark Hale hair and long, skinny limbs. She's smiling up at the camera, hands fisted in the hem of her yellow dress. "She was turning ten. These are some of her school friends, I think, I didn't really know them...and here's one with my Aunt Senna with her, actually. She must have had someone take a picture of them together."

He pauses for a long moment. Stiles looks at the next page and smiles. "What about this one?"

Derek snorts. "My brothers, Jason and Caleb. I can't remember why they're wearing those dorky hats, it was probably Jason's idea. They were pretty much inseparable, though. Always running around together and being more annoying than you can imagine. And this...this is one of my mom and dad."

Talia is looking at her husband with a soft gaze, softer than almost anything Stiles has ever seen her wear. Her husband's smile, for some reason, looks almost sheepish.

"What were they like?" Stiles asks.

They slowly make their way through the rest of the album, Derek commenting on the personalities of each person, or the situation in the photo. His voice never wavers, but it's impossibly quiet sometimes, so low that Stiles can barely make it out over the crackling fire and gusts of wind from outside.

It's going too far, maybe, and Stiles knows it, but the question's been building up inside of him for ages and ages, watching Hales tramp through the house and laugh and talk and live. "Derek," he says carefully, "how did the fire happen?"

Derek's quiet for a long time, so long Stiles thinks he should just take the question back. "There's an official story," Derek begins suddenly, "about faulty wiring. The insurance company even checked it out. But can't bring myself to lie about that."

Stiles frowns. "Wait, so is there also an unofficial story?"

" Unofficially ...there's the story Peter's working on. Where someone lit the fire on purpose."

"I'm sorry—what?" And then: "Sooo...he's not doing insurance?"

Derek snorts. "No, he's not. And right, there's someone who...who basically had it out for our family. I can't really explain that part. But he thinks she's the one who did it, and then she just...disappeared."

"So, what, he's...searching for her? Still, after five years?"

The twist of Derek's mouth is torn between a wry grin and something distinctly unhappier. "She's the type of person who covers her tracks well."

Stiles frowns, because that rings a bell. "Wait. Who was she?"

Derek shakes his head. "Kate Argent. She was from a family of people who were all good at this kind of thing."

"Wait, wait— Kate? Her name was Kate?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Just…" Stiles's brain is broken for a second. He swallows and then clears his throat. "Weird name, I don't know. Uh, how did she even know you guys?"

Derek's looking at Stiles oddly, but he grimaces. "She was close to Laura. We didn't know how close until way too late. No one did."

"That's...damn." Stiles says, unable to form a more coherent response.

"Yeah," Derek agrees.

Together they stare at the fire for what must be ages. The flames lap away at the wood, which crumbles occasionally to ash on the fireplace floor.

Stiles doesn't understand how the Kate he'd seen in the woods could have gone from that, from the person he saw, to a straight-up killer. To someone messed up enough to intentionally set fire to the house of an entire family. But he also knows that sociopathic killers are incredibly good at feigning emotions, incredibly charming, incredibly good at lying. Good enough to fool Laura, obviously. To fool him too, at a glance.

But then, there'd been all that talk of hunting, which Stiles hadn't really understood. It seems almost like Kate used to tell Laura some of what she had done, or was going to do. Like Laura wasn't completely out of the loop.

He has so many questions...only he can't ask Derek any of them. Not without explaining where all his intel comes from. He wonders if he can find the answers on his own, just by being in the right place at the right time—by seeking out the right visions. Other than today, he hasn't been in the woods near the house since he got here. Maybe it's time to hunt for the answers to a few more secrets.

An hour or more passes in this way, both of them huddled over and lost in thought. When Stiles comes back to himself, Derek is staring vaguely into the fireplace, where the fire has mostly burned down to ashes. And Stiles suddenly realizes just what it means that he was willing to build one here, in his house, where he'd lost his entire family. Just to make sure Stiles doesn't freeze.

"Derek?" he says, and Derek turns slowly, as if pulled from a trance. "You good?"

"Fine," Derek replies, but his voice sounds carved out, hollow. He shakes his head, pulling the fire iron from its place to spread the remaining embers around, letting them burn out slowly. Then, after a moment, he heads back to the kitchen, returning to douse the ashes with water. "Better not to let it burn overnight," he explains quietly.

"Yeah," Stiles agrees. "Um, thanks."

"Sure. There's more firewood, so we can do another one sometime." He clears his throat. "Anyway, I'll let you sleep or whatever. Night."

He's gone from the room before Stiles has a chance to object.

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A/N: Not gonna lie, I had a lot of fun with this chapter. So many things are happening...the plot thickens, and also my two favorite idiots sit down to talk. Leave me a note on the way out? It makes all the difference :)