That explained a lot. Peter sat there in stunned silence while Stiles kept talking.
"I was minding my own business when suddenly two werewolves jumped me in a back alley. I had no idea what a werewolf was, there were just suddenly these dudes with fangs and claws and glowing eyes. I tried to run but you know how well that went." Stiles let out a nervous laugh.
Peter didn't want to hear this but he forced himself to sit there and listen to what Stiles had to say. For all Peter knew he was one of the very few people Stiles had ever told his story to and judging by the desperate grip he had on this cup of coffee this was not easy for him but despite his visible discomfort with the whole situation Stiles kept talking.
"I screamed for help but nobody came," Stiles continued, his voice distant and Peter wasn't even sure if he was aware of his presence. "One of them put his hand over my mouth to prevent me from screaming. I bit him." He shook his head in disbelief. "Bit a werewolf, how ironic is that? Anyway, they knocked me out after that and when I came to we were out at the lake. They had gagged and bound me and there was another man. I later found out that that was Johnathan Hale, alpha of the local pack of werewolves." Stiles pointed with his straw at Peter.
"Anyway, Johnathan was talking to the lake. I remember that. He stood at the shore and was shouting out over the lake. I thought that was weird." Stiles paused, caught in memories again. "Then he came over to me and picked me up. Didn't say a word to me, didn't look me in the eye either. He just picked me up and threw me into the lake."
Stiles stopped talking with a shudder.
Peter remembered way too clearly how helpless he'd felt when Derek had put his hand over his face. He could still taste the water in the back of his throat but that was nothing compared to what Stiles had suffered. Drowning like that? Bound and gagged? Peter didn't want to imagine that.
Peter opened his mouth to say something, to apologize maybe, but Stiles cut him off.
"Don't you dare and say that you're sorry," Stiles said, his eyes too shiny. "Don't you dare."
"Why did Derek accept you?" Peter asked instead. "He could have let you drown like the others." There had been more than enough drownings in that lake but as far as Peter knew, Stiles was the only one Derek had kept.
Stiles sighed.
"Like I said, he has to follow the rules but he doesn't have to like them. He knew that I was not what he'd been asking for …"
"Not what he had been promised," Peter corrected, remembering Derek's words. When Stiles threw him a puzzled look he explained: "When Derek … visited me, he said that he wasn't given what he had been promised and that maybe he should take me instead."
"Yeah." Stiles made. "He could have gone after all of you, hell, I wanted him to go after the Hales. Drown the whole damn pack." He nodded grimly to himself as if the option was still on his mind. "But he doesn't like to kill people so he decided to let it go. As long as Johnathan kept his promise to keep people away from the lake, he was willing to play along. Plus, he now had me to deal with. I might have been a bit scared and traumatized when I came to at the bottom of the lake." He tried to play it down with a laugh but the haunted look in his eyes gave him away. "I bet I was a handful in the beginning. And I'm the only one Derek has ever kept, he didn't know what to do with me either."
That was another point Peter was curious about. He had read about water creatures who kept humans as servants but nowhere was explained what kind of services the creature demanded from their servants. There were not many things coming to mind. He doubted this was about doing the dishes.
"Does he force you to serve him?" Peter tried to ask the question as tactfully as possible.
"What?" Stiles gave him a look, now clearly amused. "You think I bend over for him?"
"Do you?" Peter asked but at the same time, he dreaded the answer. All this had happened how long ago? Stiles had been with Derek for how many years? Had Derek been abusing him all this time?
And this was on him. Not on Peter personally but on his pack. If he was honest, he was surprised that Stiles was even willing to talk to him.
"I have to stay with him," Stiles confirmed. "But otherwise I can pretty much do whatever I want. He doesn't need me and he doesn't use me for whatever your dirty mind has come up with. We're friends, actually."
Peter doubted the last part, he was thinking more along the lines of Stockholm Syndrome, but he didn't voice his concerns.
"I apologize," Peter said. He didn't use that phrase often and most of the time he didn't mean it but this was an honest apology. "On behalf of my pack. What Johnathan did was not right and I'm sorry that you had to suffer because of him."
Stiles hmmed to that, clearly not buying it. He took the straw between his lips again and started to slurp the last bit of his drink out of the cup, killing the serious mood that had been hanging over them.
"If there's anything I can do …," Peter offered. Like he had said earlier, the Hale pack paid its debts. Obviously, that hadn't been always the case, and now he got Stiles' laughing fit in the library, but they did now.
He wondered if there was a way to free Stiles but on the other hand, he dreaded that option because that would mean cheating Derek out of what little he had gotten. Peter didn't want to know what he would do then. Stiles was right, there were rules so Peter doubted that Derek could just let a breach of contract like that slide even if he wanted to. Best case scenario, Derek would demand what he had been promised in the first place, a pack member, worst-case scenario, he would just kill them all. Derek had proven that he was more than capable of doing both and Peter had not a damn clue how to stop him. If he knew what exactly Derek was, he might be able to prevent him from coming into the house but if he was right with his assumption that Derek had come through the pipes, he could get them wherever a faucet was. This could turn into a real-life horror movie for his pack real quick.
Stiles gave him one long look.
"You can't do anything," he finally said. "And I don't want you to do anything. It's been a long time ago."
"You're still holding a grudge against us," Peter reminded him. Stiles had been way too gleeful when he'd thought that Peter had murdered a Hale.
"Look." Stiles pushed his empty cup to the side to lean forward and face him directly. "You stay on your side of the town and Derek stays on his. It has worked for decades."
Stiles made an attempt to get up and leave but Peter held him back.
"Where do you get your money from?" He asked.
"What?" Blindsided Stiles dropped back into his seat.
"You paid for your drink and you're a regular here," Peter pointed out. "And you have a car. How do you pay for the gas?"
"That's none of your business," Stiles snapped in a low voice.
"Do you steal it?" Peter asked. "Or are you sucking dicks for it?" He gave the molested straw a pointed look. He should not think about Stiles' lips around a dick but damn that was a hot image.
"Why? Looking for a twink to blow you?" Stiles shot back but there was something in the way he was looking at Peter and when he took a little whiff, Peter could smell the arousal Stiles was emitting. Looked like Peter wasn't the only one with a dirty mind around here.
"I'm looking for a way to make amends for what my pack did to you," Peter explained. Money felt like the cheap way out but it was all he could think of at the moment. Maybe he could do more once he'd thought about this a little more.
"I don't want your pity and for sure I don't want a sugar daddy," Stiles almost yelled. "I don't know what you're aiming for here but I'm not that desperate."
"Stiles, where does your money come from?" Peter asked again, more serious this time. "The sheriff?"
As far as he knew the sheriff was the only person who knew about Stiles. He had to at least know something even if he didn't have the whole story.
"Okay, yes. John pays for my gas and my clothes and whatever else I need, he even gives me an allowance. Happy?" Stiles almost knocked his cup off the table but he managed to keep his voice down. "And no, I don't want your money. What you did to me …" His voice toppled over the words, breaking. "Don't you dare and try throwing money at me. This is not something you can buy your way out of, there is no forgive and forget."
With that Stiles stood again and this time Peter didn't hold him back. He just watched him when he stormed out to the coffee shop. Through the window he could see him getting in his jeep he had parked on the other side of the street and then he drove off.
Slowly Peter drank his coffee, he had a lot to think about. Stiles was right, this was nothing he could get out of with money. It was tempting to just forget about it. Stiles had lived, was he even alive, like this for a long time, why should he wake sleeping dogs?
"Because the dogs are already awake." Peter sighed into his almost empty cup. He had woken this particular dog when he had invaded Stiles' home. Stiles had made the best out of his situation, had carved out a small space for himself in what little the Hale pack had left him with and then Peter had come along and contaminated that as well.
Peter finished his cup and got up, he needed to pick up Emily from her guitar lesson soon, but then he noticed the bag on the floor. In his hurry to get away Stiles had forgotten his bag with his books.
He should bring them over to the library, which was just across the street, and let Denise handle this but instead, Peter took the bag with him and put it in the trunk of his car before he went to pick up Emily.
He only remembered that the bag was there when he went outside for his final round around the house late at night when the house was quiet and everybody else was sleeping.
Peter took the bag inside and emptied it on the coffee table. Stiles' books were on top, no surprise there, but the bag wasn't empty after those. A handful of candy wrappers, two chocolate bars and an open bag of Twizzlers came up next. Followed by various pens, all chewed on. Peter was getting the feeling that Stiles had an oral fixation.
A phone. For some reason, Peter hadn't thought that Stiles had a phone. He set it aside for the moment because at the bottom of the bag were loose sheets of paper and a notebook.
"What have we here?" Peter flipped through the book which was almost half full, the pages filled with messy handwriting. The loose pages were printouts of various newspaper articles.
"Someone has been nosy." Peter got comfortable on the couch and scanned the first pages. The name Hale came up quite a lot. It looked like Stiles had noted down everything he could find about the Hale family in the newspapers. Every graduation, every obituary, every business opening, everything that mentioned the name Hale. Between the pages, Peter even found a map of the town littered with red crosses. All the businesses owned by a Hale. There were even crosses on things that officially had nothing to do with the Hale family.
Stiles must have other sources for his information aside from the public library, that much was clear. Some he might have gotten the same way Peter had gotten his by paying a fee at the public office but there were things in there Stiles had no business knowing.
"Are you abusing the sheriff's resources?" Peter wondered aloud. He had seen Stiles going into the station, which might have been more than just a friendly visit.
The fact that Stiles knew this much about his family was scary, Peter had no idea what he would do with all the information, but on the other hand, it was exciting. Stiles had piqued his interest in a way he hadn't experienced in quite a while.
And Peter liked it.
