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Five - Every Detail Clear

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Good thing I'm not staying with two maybe-monsters who could definitely dismember me, Stiles thinks as he breaks into Peter's study.

Well, it's not really "breaking in," per se. Peter probably isn't expecting anyone to want to sneak into his office—and to be honest, there are more than enough heavy-duty locks on the front door and windows to keep strangers out. But Stiles isn't a stranger. He's just some kid Peter found. Just a stray. And the lock's not all that hard to get through; it's the kind you can jimmy with a few spare minutes and a credit card (or in Stiles's case, his Beacon Hills County library card).

Still, his dad...would not be super proud. It's not breaking and entering if I'm living here, Stiles reassures himself, though he's not sure that the "living here" part's exactly true.

But he hadn't been able to take it anymore. Lying awake on the living room sofa, listening to the windows rattle in the wind, to the occasional ghostly remnants of life: soft snoring, hushed voices, disembodied footsteps that creak across the floor. The darkness is as hard to stomach as always, because it makes him feel alone. Powerless. Like he's still locked in his own private hell in Eichen, with ghostly visions always waiting in the wings.

So he's convinced himself to get some answers while he can. Peter hasn't come back yet—the car's still gone—and Stiles is going to figure out what the hell is going on.

He chances switching the lamp on since the study's toward the back of the house, away from the direction Peter will be coming in. Olivia's sitting in a chair by the window, which just about makes Stiles's heart jump out of his chest, but she's just curled up in a ball, sleepily flipping through the pages of a hardback book. The smell of perfume, understated and vaguely floral, lingers near her.

Stiles watches her for a moment, sees the very real movements of her shoulders as she breathes, alive, whenever she is. And then he gets to work.

The titles on the shelves are just as weird as Stiles remembers, just as supernatural-themed, and that's what he's after. There's The Complete Collection of North American Shapeshifters, which could be useful, as well as Real Wolfmen: True Encounters in Modern America. But a glance through both gives him the impression that they were written more about pop culture werewolves than real ones—if those exist. He eventually goes with The Encyclopedia of Werewolf Lore and Legend, if only because it's the only one he's found without a sensationalized cover image of a fanged beast.

As good a place as any, Stiles thinks.

He goes back to turn off the lamp when something catches his eye. On Peter's desk is a list of addresses, some of them with recipients bearing the last name "Argent." Argent. Like Kate. The page is a little faded, and it's worn at the edges, like Peter's pulled it out often. It's probably Kate's known relatives, friends, and associates, maybe used as a reference, Stiles realizes—he recognizes this kind of thing from the times when his dad has dabbled in skip tracing for work.

A little girl's giggle sounds from outside the door, and footsteps echo from one end of the hall to the other. Feeling chilled beyond the cold of the Hale House, he turns out the light and leaves to read elsewhere. Just in case Peter gets home before Stiles can return the book, he locks the door and pulls it closed behind him.

Downstairs, Stiles shuts himself up in the bathroom off the kitchen. The stark lighting and the familiar, gleaming tile surfaces make him feel less creeped out. It's hard to feel afraid when you're sitting cross-legged on a closed toilet seat in a well-lit bathroom. He rifles through the pages of the werewolf book, though he's not really sure what he's looking for. Maybe some glaring sign that says Yes, the people you're couchsurfing with are werewolves, get the hell out, or Jesus, Stiles, stop being a paranoid dumbass.

There's nothing like that, exactly. But there are a few things that immediately catch his attention:

A red glint to the eyes, the page explains, is a sign of an alpha werewolf. Stiles thinks of Peter, the way his eyes shone like a cat's in the fire the first night. And then of Derek, because gold eyes are apparently a sign of a beta, even if Stiles doesn't know what that means beyond the dynamics of an actual group of wolves. Skimming through the chapter on sensory skills, he finds a lot of info on their insanely good hearing: the ability to hear low-frequency sounds, even human breathing and heartbeats. Or Peter's uncanny ability to know what I'm saying about from anywhere in the house.

And then there's the resistance to extreme temperatures, like the winter's cold. There's the fact that werewolf packs tend to like living as together in large numbers. There's their ability to move quietly. Their ability to heal quickly, or endure pain.

It's true, Stiles thinks, leaning back to thumb thoughtlessly through the pages. They are werewolves, both of them.

It has to be true.

He sits still for a few minutes, uncertain, because he half-expected not to find anything. And all the reading in the world doesn't tell Stiles what lycanthropy means for the remaining Hales, or what it means for him.

And then he realizes—he could be there too, in one of Peter's books, his whole ghost whisperer thing. Whatever's going on with him might be something that can be cleared up in just a couple of chapters, a couple of pages. He'd take a couple of words.

He opens the bathroom door, slipping out into the empty hall. But on his way back upstairs, mind racing, he finds find a vision waiting for him on the second floor landing. Stiles slows, stopping halfway up the stairs to wait for it to move, to do something. But it remains completely still in the darkened space, a tall, black shadow of a man whose silhouette Stiles can just barely make out.

"Mieczyslaw Stilinski," Peter's voice says coldly as he reaches over to flick on the overhead light. "Aren't you at least going to say hello?"

.

If Stiles weren't looking for them, it might have been hard to catch the signs of Peter's fury. But it's all there, in the icy glint of his blue eyes, or maybe the stiff jerk of his head as he gestures for Stiles to come all the way upstairs.

Stiles swallows, slowly taking a step down instead. "Peter," he croaks, trying to play it casual. "What's going on?"

Peter gives him a hard, don't-play-dumb look. "You've been in my study." Stiles has managed to hide the book of werewolf lore behind his back just in time, but Peter not stupid. He knows something's there.

"Oh, that? I was just…" But here, Stiles's mind goes blank.

"You were just…?"

"I was just curious," Stiles replies quickly, taking another step back.

"Stop moving away," Peter snarls, his eyes glowing bright gold, "and tell me what you were doing in my study." He starts forward, more quickly than Stiles thought possible, and grabs the collar of Stiles's coat. "I've learned a little about you tonight. But I'd like you to tell me who you really are, and why you're here." Before Stiles can even answer, Peter slams his back against the wall. "Are you with the Argents?" he demands.

"What? No! I don't know anything about them!" Stiles protests, grabbing at Peter's hand, which is as immovable as stone against his collarbone.

"What the hell, Peter?" Derek's voice says from down below, and thundering footsteps rain closer. He hesitates just a step away as Stiles struggles, though, eyes darting between Peter and Stiles. "Uncle Peter," he says, wary. "What's going on?"

Peter doesn't answer right away, and Stiles realizes that he's staring down at the book of werewolf lore, which must have fallen onto the stairs in the struggle. "I don't know," Peter murmurs slowly, "but we're going to find out."

"Ok, look, please don't eat me," Stiles blurts, hands up. "Not to sound cliche, but I'm probably like at least ninety percent skin and bones. Plus, I wasn't going to tell anybody. I just had to know if I was crazy. More crazy than usual."

"You had to know what?" Derek asks.

Stiles feels stupid saying the words out loud, but at the look Derek gives him, he wrestles them out anyway. "That you guys...are werewolves?"

"That sounds like a question," Peter observes. Stiles's gaze drifts down to find that the fingers of his free hand have elongated, shaping claws.

"Well, now it isn't," Stiles squeaks.

Peter growls—actually growls—but it seems to be more general frustration than irritation with anything Stiles has said. And then he leans back a little, giving Stiles some breathing room without letting him up from the wall. "I'll tell you something you might have already learned, then," he says, suddenly conversational. "I can tell if you're lying. I can hear the way your heart beats, and I can tell when you're nervous, or when you're telling the truth. So. I'd like you to answer: are you with the Argents?"

Stiles stares, then firmly says, "No, I'm not, and I've never even met any of them."

Peter tilts his head. "Not quite a lie, and you had to think about it. Alright. Did you come here to hurt us?"

"What? No! I literally just didn't want to freeze my ass off, as I've already told you—"

"How do you kill a werewolf?"

"I don't know! Why would I know something like that?"

"What do you know about hunters?"

This last one makes Stiles flounder a bit. "Uh...like, deer hunters? I don't know, they poach in the preserve sometimes? Fun fact: one of them shot at me in the woods once. It wasn't actually fun."

Other than narrowing his eyes, Peter says nothing.

"Peter," Derek says, a warning in his voice. He manages to ease Peter's grip with barely any trouble, pulling Stiles out of his grasp. "I don't think he's a threat."

"One hundred percent not a threat," Stiles echoes weakly, already feeling the beginnings of a bruise forming where Peter's arm was pressed against his collar.

Peter frowns, stooping over to pick the book up off the floor. "I'll be the judge of that," he says finally, flipping through it once and snapping it shut with an audible thud. He looks up at Stiles. "You don't want to tell us what's going on. Normally, I wouldn't give a shit. But your secrets are less important than our safety. So we're all going to sit down for a nice chat, and you're going to tell us exactly who you are, how the missing sheriff's son wound up in the middle of our preserve, and why you know more about the Argents than you're telling me."

Stiles has no rebuttal to that. Honestly, if it means that Peter will pop his claws back in, and no one's going to kill him in a secluded house where no one can hear him scream...well, at this point, he's fine with telling them almost anything.

Derek gives him a sympathetic glance as they head downstairs to the living room, where Stiles immediately begins to fidget nervously in place.

"Sit the fuck down, Stiles," Peter says tiredly.

Stiles glares at him, but he drops into an armchair. Derek takes the next couch over, and Peter prowls restlessly about the room, never quite turning his back to Stiles.

"So," Derek prompts, eyebrows raised.

"So," Stiles repeats slowly.

"So, stop being cute and tell us how you got from the sheriff's house to the woods," Peter snaps.

Stiles cringes a little, but it's probably the best way to do it. Pull the bandaid right off. Absently, he reaches for the one on his forehead. "Okay. So I'm gonna just...tell you," he says, trying to work himself up to it.

"Obviously," Peter growls.

"I'm gonna tell you real fast," Stiles amends, sweeping his arms out to the sides, "and so...okay. The main thing you have to know is that I've always had these...well, the doctors used to say they were hallucinations. And that I just couldn't differentiate reality from fiction. When I was little, it would happen just every now and then, no big deal. It worried my parents, but it was just this thing I had happen a couple times a year, and otherwise I was just a normal kid. But the point is that they're not hallucinations. They're real."

"This has nothing to do with anything," Peter remarks snidely, though he's now perched on the arm of the opposite armchair, intently watching Stiles.

"It has everything to do with everything," Stiles objects, already frustrated. "That's where it started. And now, wherever I go, I see people who aren't there, but were—exactly wherever I am. I guess, ghosts," he admits finally. "I see people who died."

He gives it a moment, lets it sink in. With many things, Peter and Derek seem wildly different, even completely opposite. But the way their faces pull open, eyes widening in realization, is patently familial.

"Here," Peter says, disbelieving. "You see ghosts. Here."

"Yes. All the time."

"How do you...who do you see?" Derek asks, looking pained.

"Everyone," Stiles replies, clenching his hands a little. "Everyone you showed me, before."

"You showed him the photo book?" Peter asks, frowning. Derek nods, looking over at him. "That makes it harder to verify this."

"I thought you could tell if I'm telling the truth."

"I can tell when you think you're telling the truth," Peter corrects him, letting Stiles process the subtle difference.

Something cold settles over Stiles. "I'm not hallucinating," he says firmly.

"And I'd just like to be sure of that."

Stiles grimaces, thinking quickly. "Cece likes to sing that song, 'It's raining, it's pouring.'" He says suddenly. "She annoys all of you guys with it, all the time. Elliot always makes snoring sounds when she gets to that line." He watches Peter and Derek both freeze, hope and dismay warring in their faces. "Jason...he collects pine cones. Keeps them in on the dresser in his room, to make a little pine cone forest. Talia likes to sit there in that chair and drink coffee every morning," he adds, jerking his chin toward the seat whose arm Peter is perched on. The man—the werewolf—glances down at the seat cushion quickly, as if he might actually see her there. "And no one else in the house really wears perfume, but your wife does. She wears it all the time. Sometimes I don't realize she's here until I smell it in the air. Kinda flowery, or something."

Peter's staring at him, open-mouthed. He looks like Stiles just slapped him.

"Sorry," Stiles says quietly.

"Oh my god," Derek murmurs. "You really see them. Do you...can you see anyone now?"

Good question. Stiles looks around, but it's just the three of them. When he listens, though, he can hear faint noises from the kitchen. "No," he says finally, "but I think Senna's cooking something. I can hear her humming...it's 'Come On Eileen,' but it's not super on-key."

"You see everyone?"

"Everyone," Stiles confirms. "All of them. Even you, once. And I think I heard Peter's voice outside, but your Uncle Rhys sounds a lot like him, so it's hard to tell."

They both look alarmed by this, and Stiles quickly raises his hands. "But it's not what you think! It doesn't mean...it's not, like, you're secretly a ghost, or you're dying or anything, as far as I know. It's just when you're a part of all the stuff that happened, in the past. I see a younger version of you in the vision. I dunno, I'm not explaining it well—and it doesn't really matter. Total sidebar."

"So how did that get you...here?" Peter asks, looking very slightly more composed.

"Oh. Well, it got me thrown into Eichen House first, this uh, mental health facility in Beacon Hills." He explains, chuckling self-deprecatingly. "You can probably guess that if people can't tell you're telling the truth, they start thinking you're crazy. And my dad didn't really know what to do with me, after my mom died. Like, he was just trying to hold everything together, and I guess he was drinking a lot, but…" He shakes his head slowly.

"You started seeing your mom," Derek guesses, frowning. "At home."

"Yeah. All of a sudden, I could still see her everywhere, all the time. I wasn't even really sure she was dead, sometimes. And...well, Dad didn't know how to handle that, so he made me see a therapist, who had no fucking clue what was going on. Ugh," Stiles mutters, squeezing the bridge of his nose. "He was the worst. Anyway, I this one time, I chased her through the house, and I almost went through one of the windows upstairs. And then I stayed there, trying to talk to her, while my arms were bleeding. Dad thought it was a suicide attempt," he adds gravely.

"Ah," Peter says at last. "He thought he couldn't trust you to be alone any longer."

Stiles shrugs. "It was kind of the last straw in a long line of bad stuff that I did, when I couldn't figure out what was real. So I went to Eichen, which was the actual worst. I mean, not—I guess for a normal person, it would have been just whatever. They mostly let me stay in my room alone if I wanted, but…" he trails off, remembering the bare walls and bedding, the rotating roommates, and the glares and shouting from everyone else.

"What happened?" Derek asks.

"All of a sudden, I could see all these people who'd weren't there—but never my mom, not anymore. That's when I realized I wasn't just seeing her, I was seeing the past in Eichen House, just like I saw my mom in the past at home. That's when I knew she was dead. Like the people I found out were dead in Eichen. Dead patients, from like decades and decades past."

"What did they do?"

Stiles shudders. "Nothing. I mean, I don't know, they were just...people walking around who weren't really there, people beating the hell out of each other, people yelling and crying. Just all these people from the past. Living like normal."

Peter nods gravely. "But that's not something you could easily explain. Seeing someone who isn't there. Reacting to them."

"It makes sense," Derek adds. "That's why you're so jumpy, and why you stare off into space sometimes. But I thought it might just be the ADHD, like you said."

"Dude, you're the only one who thinks that," Stiles snorts. "Or maybe the people in Eichen just have more experience dealing with mental patient BS. But no one believed I was okay. Everyone knew I was out of my mind. Obviously, I guess. I eventually managed to sneak out, long story, and get back to my dad to tell him what was happening to me, what I figured out. And he said 'Sure thing, Stiles,' and turned around and took me right back to Eichen."

His mouth twists against his will, still bitter at the betrayal. "I can't even blame him, because I know what it sounds like. And I can't say I'm sorry he did it, because I actually don't know if I could be okay just...going back home, and seeing my mom on repeat, forever and ever, like she's still here. So I waited till I could break out again. That time, I just crawled out of a window. They're really not great about stuff like that unless you're in the high-security ward. Which I guess I would be now, if I ever get thrown back in there."

"You're not going back there," Derek says determinedly, when Stiles trails off again.

Stiles shrugs. He wants to believe it, but he presses on, suddenly uncomfortable. "Anyway, I decided the best place for me is somewhere there aren't a lot of people around most of the time, so I don't always have to figure out if I'm trying to talk to some dead guy or just a rando on the street. Bingo—the woods are perfect. If you're in there, you're probably alone or in a small group, and if I start talking at you like you're alive when you're not, well, there's no one else around to see that. So I grabbed some stuff from home when I knew dad would be at work, warm clothes and some food and whatever, and I just went into the woods and didn't come back. That was like...two months ago. Mostly I've been doing odd jobs for money, sometimes I stay at motels when I can, but lots of the time I lay low in the library trying to research what's up with me. And if I can do anything to make it stop."

"Wait, you've been in the preserve this whole time?" Derek asks.

"No, I was camping farther upstate a couple months ago, when it was warmer. But then I headed down here, because south seemed...maybe warmer and I didn't know what else to do during the winter. Which Peter picked up on, dragged me here, I started seeing Hales everywhere and learned you guys are werewolves, and then, wow, here we are, all caught up and everything."

In spite of the topic, Derek snorts. Stiles gives him a tentative half-smile.

"Hm," Peter huffs, but when Stiles turns his way, he doesn't seem quite as inclined to try to kill Stiles by the force of his glare alone. "That doesn't explain the Argents. You aren't planning to hurt us, and you don't know about hunters. But you also said you've never met the Argents, and you don't know anything about them, and that's not exactly true. Your heartbeat jumped."

"Ah. Okay. So, I may have seen Kate Argent. In a vision. Like I said, sometimes when living people are wrapped up in something that happened with the dead, it happens. And I think it was her—I mean, Laura called her 'Kate.' Like, blonde hair, super hot, a little older than Laura."

Peter's growling again, so low Stiles can barely hear it. "What did you see?"

"I mean...basically nothing. I've only seen her once, and she and Laura were together in the woods. Kate was talking about wanting to leave California. They kissed. I don't know, dude, it was pretty short."

Derek closes her eyes, and Peter nods solemnly, the curl of his lips never quite fading. "That answers that question."

"What question?"

"Peter's...always had a theory that Kate had some way of knowing more about the house than she could have without help. How she knew to put mountain ash around the cellar door, too. And she and Laura had been in high school together at one point, so. It made sense. But..."

"Oh. You didn't know. That they were dating, I mean."

"No," Derek replies, lowering his head to scrub a hand through his short hair. "I can't believe she never told us."

Stiles shrugs helplessly. "Dude, she probably...I don't know. All of you guys were tight, but why wouldn't she want to keep a relationship a secret for a while? That's kind of normal."

"Not a relationship with an Argent," Peter grinds out, pacing again.

"You don't get it, Stiles," Derek explains dully. He's staring down at his hands as he slowly clenches and unclenches his fists. "The Argents are a family of hunters. As in, werewolf hunters. Their main mission in life is to wipe out as many of us as they can."

Stiles can feel his eyebrows shoot up. "Ohhh...that...makes sense. Very, uh, Romeo and Juliet," he says, and then winces at his own wording. "Actually, I don't know why I didn't put that together sooner. I guess maybe because Kate seems so...well, innocent definitely isn't the word I'd use to describe her, but maybe candid? She just seemed like a college kid, not exactly what I picture when I hear the words 'werewolf hunter.'"

"You don't know what the Argents are capable of," Peter says, looping back and forth in front of the fireplace. "And neither did Laura. I don't know how she let herself get dragged into this, or how we could have missed it."

He trails off, continuing to pace as he turns to his own thoughts. Stiles watches his agitated movements for a while before looking back at Derek. He seems frozen in place, staring down at his hands.

Stiles gives them both a couple minutes, fidgeting helplessly in his seat. At last, he turns to Derek. "Hey, big guy," Stiles says hesitantly. "You okay?"

"Yeah. No, I…" he frowns. "Does that mean everyone's still here?"

Stiles shakes his head. "Your family? I don't think so. I mean, I don't know much about...anything. So I guess it's possible. But I've always felt like they were more like echoes than people. They don't move or interact with living people, they're just images of the past. Moving photos, Harry Potter style. There's nothing there anymore."

"I don't know if that's better or worse."

"Me neither. Better, probably. When I...when I realized my mom was really dead, I started realizing I'd never seen her do anything new. She was just repeating all the old things we did together. And that actually made me feel better, because wherever she is, she's not trapped here, in this weird cycle. I like to picture her somewhere way better than this. Sitting in a redwood forest somewhere in the afterlife."

Finally, Derek looks up at him—just to quirk an eyebrow. Stiles laughs. "That was her favorite place," he explains. "She made my dad drive us up there once every two years or so."

"You're really...casual. About all this," Derek tells him shakily.

"I've had a long time to adjust, dude."

"Stop calling me dude," Derek replies automatically, and then: "I wish I could see them, too."

Stiles hesitates. "I don't," he says at last, smiling at the questioning look Derek gives him. "It's hard to move on, when you see the person you love on repeat, day after day. It's enough to let you pretend they're still here. But that's not how you want to live your life. I think...I think if you spend all your time living with ghosts, you eventually kind of become one, too."

Derek's face is tight, which Stiles might once have interpreted as the need to punch something. Now, though, he scoots forward and puts his hand on Derek's knee. "I'm sorry. I know it's...I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Derek says roughly. His hands twitch, like he might put his hand over Stiles's, or else push him away. After a beat, though, he shoves his fists into the pockets of his jacket. "I know."

Peter turns toward them suddenly, opening his mouth before he catches something in the way they've leaned closer together, or perhaps in their expressions. "Touching," he says flippantly, and they jump apart. Derek's face turns a little pink. "These visions...I can work with them. I've been tracing the Argents' trail for years, but the truth is that I don't know much about Kate before she destroyed our family. I don't know where she is now. But you can learn, Stiles. You can find out more about her, whatever she shared with Laura."

"Dude...I don't know. Not that I don't want to help, but I don't really pick them. They just sort of happen."

"Then I guess we'll have to figure out where they happened," Peter says thoughtfully. "Find out where Kate and Laura met when they wanted to keep things a secret."

"Does that mean...I can stay?" Stiles asks.

Derek rolls his eyes. Peter smirks. "That means you can stay. For now."

"Great. One question. What are you going to do with Kate, once you find her?"

Peter doesn't even hesitate: "I'm going to kill her for what she did to us."

A part of Stiles expected that answer, but it still takes the breath out of him. Working with someone who wants to kill some lady he's never even met—it's not exactly squeaky clean ethics. But then he remembers the facts: eleven Hales, burned to death right here on the property. By Kate's hand. Stiles looks at Derek's hollow expression, and Peter's determined one. "Okay," he says finally. "I'll do what I can."

Peter nods, looking at the window behind him. The moon is high now—it's later than Stiles first realized—and there's a silver glow to the world outside. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Stiles agrees.

The werewolf sweeps across the room and toward the hall, in the direction of the stairs. But as he goes, he calls over his shoulder, "Stay downstairs, stray."

Stiles can't quite tell if it's a joke or not, but he definitely doesn't mean to go back there without asking. He watches Peter go, and then he turns to Derek, smiling.

"Okay, dude. I know this was a bombshell, but do me a solid. Tell me everything I need to know about werewolves."