Never Enough
Summary
After hearing the people, he considered his pack—his family—saying things that he would have never thought they would say, Stiles is more than a little disheartened and hurt. Yes, he knows he can be annoying and rude and doesn't know when not to poke the angry bear. Yes, he's human and maybe that makes him weak and pathetic and containing questionable worth. But, to hear the words, "He will never be pack." It hurt something quiet and hopeful inside of him.
Since it's summer, he decides on a whim to go visit his estranged cousins elsewhere. He needs to get out of Beacon Hills for a bit. Needs to clear his head. Needs to unbreak his heart.
Though, in an effort to get away from the supernatural and regain some measure of normalcy in his life, he gets drawn deeper in—in a strange twist of fate and a world doused in irony.
And—when he returns to his home, he knows that there is a quiet confidence in his ability to—not just survive but thrive in a world riddled with supernatural. He doesn't need the Hale pack to be great—to be something worthwhile—to be enough. He's content with who he is.
Also, basically a story where Stiles discovers himself and finally puts himself first. He's not leaving his one-sided family on their own for the summer—providing them with the research he has gathered. Includes overall healthiness and healing—who doesn't love a muscular, tattooed Stiles?
Pairings: Stiles/Derek, Scott/Allison, Erica/Boyd, and Lydia/Jackson. Potentially Isaac/OC
Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf
Part III
Stiles had been quite literally forced to sit down from the force of his hysterical laughing—and there was definitive hysterics to the sound currently escaping his throat—much to the shock of his cousins at the sudden sound. It was doubtlessly nearing four in the morning, and he had found out that his cousins were involved with something so incredibly supernatural it had breathed nasty odors into his face and delivered a metaphorical smack upside the head. He blamed Peter Hale completely for this reaction—if Peter Hale hadn't bitten Scott, though Stiles supposed he could trace that particular blame back to Kate Argent, then he wouldn't be having this reaction to the fact that there was more to know about the supernatural world.
He totaled them up in his head. He had seen werewolves, hunters, kanima, and now a gormick. He supposed there was also the druid and the fact that he was a spark that also counted as being supernatural—but his point remained. He had gone from thinking the world was completely sane to realizing that all of these creatures existed right under his nose and now being turned into irony's bitch.
"I think we broke him." Chris' announcement drew him from his thoughts. "I blame you Jace. You tackled him." The twin turned to his brother while Jace stared at him in offense and Stiles wiped the mirth-filled tears from his eyes.
Jace gestured emphatically to him. "I saved his life. Five seconds later and we would be having a very awkward conversation with Uncle Noah about how his son was torn to shreds by a creature that very few people know exist." His cousin protested. "Clearly, he just has a few screws loose."
Chris scowled at him, folding his arms across his chest. "And whose fault is that?"
Stiles continued chuckling, "Werewolves." He exhaled, leaning back against the column.
"No—that was a gormick. How on earth did you get werewolves?" Jace stared at him as though he had two heads. In fact, all three of his cousins were staring at him as though he had two heads—maybe was even popping a third head out at this very moment. "Maybe, we should take him to the hospital. He might be a little bit concussed." Jace sounded incredibly reluctant—doubtlessly about how they would explain this to Aunt Becca and Stiles latched onto the thought. She probably knew and that's why she had them repainting the barn and Jace cleaning it so often.
Stiles stopped chuckling, staring at them. "I'm not concussed. You're not the incredible Hulk, Jace." He rolled his eyes. "My best friend was bitten by a werewolf." Stiles spoke slowly, "Werewolves, hunters, kanimas—been there, dealt with that. By the way a kanima is basically a were-lizard that has a slave-master complex." He waved a dismissive hand while the staring increased.
Chris shook his head slowly. "Werewolves aren't real."
He tried not to give him a look—ok, it was really a five percent effort—but he couldn't help it. "You just fought a smelly, nasty, vicious creature at three-thirty in the morning and you think werewolves that go a-woo in the middle of the night on a full moon is a stretch." Stiles deadpanned.
"Werewolves are real." Jace exhaled. He blinked after a few minutes. "Well, that's—that's really something." He whistled, glancing towards Thomas before looking back to Stiles, doubtlessly communicating with his eyes whether they should take Stiles to the hospital for a concussion.
"Gormicks are real." Stiles countered. He scrubbed a hand down his face, knowing that he would not be getting back to sleep with convincing Jace specifically that werewolves were real. "Look, my best friend—Scott McCall, a bit of an asshole recently—was bitten by a werewolf. He's a werewolf. Full moon means Scotty-boy gets a bit claw-happy and emotional and angry. I have—let's see, one, two, three, four, four-and-half, five—yeah five friends that are werewolves. Technically it's six, but Derek is more like half a friend than a full friend and Peter is a creeperwolf so he automatically gets half a point, though he should probably get a quarter of a point because he's the one who bit Scott."
Thomas sat down next to him, "And, this Peter guy is a friend?" He arched an eyebrow.
Stiles let out a low whistle and patted him on the shoulder as Chris and Jace sat down as well—Jace a bit more reluctant than the other two. "It's a relatively recent development. Let's just say death did wonders for the guy's personality." He chuckled. "Ok, so long-story-short, Kate Argent—queen of the psychotic huntress bitch club—burned down a house with a majority of Derek and Peter's family inside. Like, they lost everyone. Parents. Siblings. Peter's wife and unborn child. It was bad. And Peter was left comatose, and it was pretty bad for him—werewolves have super healing, and it took him six years to heal enough to be able to move. Maybe a little less. He went insane, bit Scott among a bunch of other people, killed everyone involved in the fire. We killed him. Derek became the alpha." Stiles explained, cringing at the length and brief mention of murder.
If it wasn't incredibly obvious, he was definitely biased against Kate Argent for her part in all of it. She was a bitch who deserved what she got and Gerard Argent was worse and he deserved every drop of pain he got. "Wow." Thomas exhaled, studying his fingernails. "And here I thought this place was the only place with supernatural problems. Creatures like that pass through every so often and we normally handle them. Never seen any werewolves though." He added the last part.
He shrugged. "Most of the feral omegas are drawn to other wolves—since there probably aren't any wolves here, hunters tend to have a stigma that prevent wolves from settling where they are—that's why they haven't been drawn here and the non-feral ones are normal, everyday people." Stiles continued. "They're definitely not like creatures like that." He added forcefully, opening his mouth to apologize for being rude and defensive but his apology was interrupted by Thomas.
"I didn't mean it like that." Thomas spoke. "So, I'm guessing you've been dealing with a lot of shit that you left out when we got you to un-bottle your emotions." He continued, eyes narrowing consideringly.
Stiles shrugged. "I got the bigger problems out, if that's any consolation." He offered. "So, how did you guys find out about the supernatural? I'm willing to bet it wasn't because you and your best friend were in the woods one night and your best friend got bit by a feral alpha werewolf." Stiles queried, changing the subject unskillfully. He'd probably get better at that, hopefully, eventually—doubtful.
Jace shrugged. "Mom and Da always told us stories at bedtime about creatures like this—the dark, more demonically-based ones. I found out they were true when I was twelve after they both got home and sat us down and explained to us that this place was a resource for demonic creatures." He answered. Stiles glanced down at his fingernails—it made him curious, did his own mother know about these things? Had she been alive, would he be knowing about the demonic creatures like his cousins?
Propping his chin up on his hand, he glanced at his cousins. "So—you're hunters?" Stiles checked.
"We prefer protectors." Thomas answered. "We protect people. We don't hunt creatures that don't hunt us. And, we're especially not hunters in the context that you are doubtlessly used to." He continued, knowing exactly where Stiles was coming from.
He grinned. "That's a relief. I'm afraid I'd have to disown you if I found out that you were friends with the Argent family." Stiles stated, "I mean—they're not all bad. Chris Argent is somewhat of a decent human being where he didn't support his father in letting children be tortured. And Allison—" He swallowed, "—she's getting better, I think. Realizing her grandfather lied to her about a lot of things regarding her mother's death. It's mainly just Kate and Gerard Argent that are terrible and dead."
Jace turned white, "You mean to tell me that this Gerard tortured teenagers." His knuckles whitened and Stiles saw the forming smiles on Thomas' and Chris' faces dissipating as well.
Stiles hesitated for a second before nodding. "My dad doesn't know about werewolves. It's safer for him to not be involved in it. Knowledge is dangerous after all. The being jumped thing was a cover story for Gerard getting a little super-powered." He remarked quietly. A distant part of him noticed that this was the first time he had admitted what Gerard did to him aloud. He hadn't told anyone—to protect them because the bruises on his face and stomach and legs were not designed to hurt him but the people around him.
"Well, now I definitely stand behind us calling ourselves protectors instead of hunters." Chris commented idly, face still pale, though he smiled wanly. It was an expression Stiles returned within a few seconds.
Thomas cleared his throat. "And, now I suppose it would be unwise for us to not give you a more complete training so that you can keep up with werewolves." He remarked, clapping his hands together, smirking.
Grimacing, Stiles remarked. "Please tell me that doesn't mean more free-falling."
"Of course, it does."
They continued sharing small tidbits of their stories and experiences in the supernatural world throughout the night, until the sun rose, and it was time for them to head to the farmers' market. Throughout, it was revealed that it was the Haerviu family that had inherited the habit of protecting the world from the supernatural and not something his mother had descended into. It was something that Stiles had no idea how he felt about—the fact that it was his uncle-in-law involved and his best friend might have been a sign that he was always going to wind up involved at some rate.
He still wondered if his mother knew what her sister had been getting involved with—if she had known. Maybe, he would ask Aunt Becca when they planted vegetables together on Monday as they had done the past two Mondays—a routine that was easy and gave Stiles a chance to get to know his mother at a younger age from someone who had grown up around her. His younger mother sounded like someone Stiles would have been best friends with—a fact that ached and healed at the same time.
It ached that he wouldn't get the chance to say his mother was his best friend. But it healed him for the same reason because she was like him, and it made him think that she might be proud of the person who he was becoming.
Stiles knew the second he had stepped into the antique store off of main-street that Jace had dragged him to—he knew the place was special. Something inside of him, his spark, responded acutely to the place. That was another reason Stiles suspected that he might have been always meant to find out about the supernatural world. There were just too many coincidences for it to be passed on as less than a possibility. He brushed his fingers against the spines of the books, subconsciously searching for something.
He didn't know what he was looking for. Just that there was something here. "Best place, ever, am I right?" Jace asked rhetorically as he pulled a few books from the shelves to read their summaries. "They've got the coolest shi—stuff here." He censored himself, remembering that Diana had tagged along with them. With all of her seven-year-old innocence, Stiles knew that she had no idea about the creatures that go bump in the night being as alive as them.
Diana rolled her eyes childishly. "Mama isn't around—you can curse." She toyed with a few of the necklaces hanging from a giant, tree-like piece that held an assortment of jewelry—both the clunky stuff and crystals.
"Then you would pick it up and say it in front of Mama." Jace responded without turning around. Stiles continued his perusal of the store, searching for what had made his spark light up and say closer, closer, closer. His hand finally passed over a spine that made an electric holt travel through him and he instantly pulled the book from the shelf. It looked rather ordinary, mundane, though Stiles opened it and flipped through—taking notice of the notes in the margins and the words written on the page. Some parts were written in a different language—one that look like Latin if he was not misled.
"What's that?" Diana queried, glancing over the book in his hands with her head tilted to one side curiously. Stiles glanced towards her and Jace—both were sporting curious looks and Jace had an eyebrow raised. "It looks old." She continued.
He shrugged. "It's neat. I'm buying it." Stiles declared, tucking it against his side. He shot Jace a meaningful look, knowing that he would explain it later once he got around to it. Knowledge for more about his spark was rather limited to Alan Deaton and Stiles liked the idea of finding or happening across information about himself by himself. Maybe it was researcher's pride. "So, are you getting one of those necklaces?" He asked Diana—noting how she had played with a few of the gemstone necklaces.
Diana tossed Jace a pleading look, and he met her gaze with an eyebrow raised—expression unmovable. "I'm not buying you a necklace every time we come here." Jace remarked dryly.
"I'm going to wander over that-a-way before she turns the pout on me." Stiles jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, fingers dancing over the cover of the book he had found. He also checked that he actually did remember to bring his wallet—something his father had reminded him to do before Stiles left, though his dad had opted to get a few more scant hours of sleep before he would join them for lunch.
Jace chuckled. "Wise decision. You finally mastered the art of using your brain cells."
Stiles rolled his eyes at the comment, opting to not give his cousin the middle finger for the fact that they were in a very public place, and he didn't want to be tasked with ridiculous chores when Diana picked up something bad from him. "Should have kicked him out of the moving car." Stiles murmured, joining the line. The lady in front of him arched an eyebrow and turned to him. "Sorry, you know how annoying cousins can get." He offered an awkward grin, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.
The woman rolled her eyes before turning back around, muttering about teenagers. Stiles considered pulling up YouTube and playing Teenagers by My Chemical Romance but figured that the woman might actually hit him with her purse, and she looked like the type to sneak bricks into her bags. He whistled, rolling back and forth on his heels as he waited in line. "Total is $15.87." The girl behind the counter popped a bubble of gum, glancing over him with a smirk that made Stiles distinctly uncomfortable. "Hey cutie, I haven't seen you around here." She leaned forward and Stiles respectfully kept his eyes on her face and not the cleavage being teased.
He could feel heat crawling up his neck and was thankful for the tan that covered it somewhat. "Oh—I'm staying with my cousins for the summer." Stiles dug through his wallet, prying out his card from the pocket that did not want to release it.
"Who are your cousins? I might know them." The girl behind the counter queried, sounding curious. "I'm Izzy—by the way." She continued, introducing herself with her crimson-painted lips curling into a smirk.
Stiles grinned, "I'm Stiles. I know—weird name." He rolled his eyes. "To tell you the truth, it's better than my first name. It's a real tongue-twister." Stiles leaned forward to whisper it like it was a somehow conspiring secret. "And my cousins—the Haevrius. Thomas, Jace, Chris, Diana." He added, answering her question once he remembered it. Izzy was beautiful—dark hair that waterfalled down her back, flawless skin, round lips, dark brown eyes framed with thick, black lashes.
A perfectly plucked eyebrow raised. "Oh. I can totally see it now." Izzy tilted her head to one side, dark hair spilling over one shoulder. "You look like Thomas a bit." She added, "So—what brings you here for the summer?" She propped her arms on the counter.
He glanced behind him, checking that there was no one waiting impatiently in line. He didn't want to get the girl fired. Mercifully, the queue was empty, though Stiles knew Jace, and Diana were around there somewhere. "It's a long story." Stiles answered. "Guess I just missed my cousins and teasing wittle Jacey wacey." He teased loudly, knowing that Jace would pop up and threaten him with violence in retaliation for the nickname.
"And I suppose poor wittle Jacey wacey missed you." A hint of laughter entered Izzy's voice. "I like you—you should call me sometime." She winked, scribbling her number down on the receipt and sliding it across the counter.
Stiles accepted the number, pocketing the receipt after checking the number a second later. "For when I get bored of wittle Jacey wacey." Stiles quipped. Izzy laughed and he stepped away from the register, allowing the costumer that had moseyed over to be rung up by the dark-haired girl. Stiles put the bag containing his book on one arm while he waited for Jace and Diana by the entrance—they joined him after a second. "You almost ready to go, Jacey." He arched an eyebrow.
Jace flicked him on the ear. "So—you're the one who taught Izzy that."
"We need to talk about your inclination to violence." Stiles remarked, rubbing his ear as he fell into step beside them as they exited the shop, Stiles offering one last wave to Izzy before the door shut.
"You know she has a boyfriend, right?" Jace crossed his arms.
Stiles rolled his eyes. "And here I was buying roses and chocolates after two minutes of conversation." He deadpanned. Izzy was gorgeous, but Stiles didn't feel that spark of energy with her—rather he only felt like she would become a really good friend. Something he had learned to discern as he had felt that same vibe from Lydia and misread it completely. "Relax Jacey poo." Stiles continued, patting him on the shoulder.
His cousin scowled. "I will push you onto the street to get run over."
Gesturing to the pedestrians around him, Stiles lifted both eyebrows. "Normally when you threaten with murder—you should try to do it without witnesses." He remarked.
Jace raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you threaten to chuck me out a window in front of my own brother?" He challenged.
Stiles grinned. "Well, yeah—but your brother probably would have uploaded a video to YouTube for the views." He commented, his phone buzzed in his pocket and he checked—eyebrows hiking upwards when he read the message from Scott. "Note to self—never let Scott get a dog." Stiles murmured, "He struggles to take care of himself, so him getting a dog would be an awful thing for everyone involved." He continued.
As he checked his notifications, he felt slightly sheepish. It wasn't the first message to come from the back—rather Derek Hale had texted him a few hours ago. "Wait, who's this Derek guy?" Jace peeked over his shoulder.
"I've told you about Derek." Stiles raised his gaze to give Jace a look. He had mentioned Derek at some point this morning. Probably. Most likely. His sleep deprived brain couldn't remember. "Muscled guy. Scowly. Expressive eyebrows. Stubble." He rattled off. Stiles stopped to grab a bottle of water—the heat crawling up his neck was definitely from heat stroke. He would not be accepting any other reason for his face pinkening than heat stroke. "He's got half a point for being half a friend." Stiles added.
Jace stared at him, before he smirked. "Someone's turning red." He declared in a sing-song voice. Diana's eyes lit up, her lips twisting up at the corners. "Oh—Stiles—why didn't you tell me more about this Derek guy?" Jace's amusement was painfully obvious.
Stiles smacked him on the back of the head. "You don't have to announce Derek to the world. We're not in the Lion King franchise. Besides, didn't I say he's half a friend? There's absolutely no reason to be talking about Derek. Like, none—what-so-ever—I mean my dad doesn't even like the guy. We're moving on. Topic changed." He shoved his cousin down the street.
"Who knew you were into the bad boys?" Jace teased.
Diana bounced on her toes. "Can we see a picture of him?"
He did love that they were incredibly accepting of him liking a guy—or theoretically liking a guy because he didn't have those feelings. Those feelings didn't exist. Nope. Nada. Nonexistent. "Why would you assume I have a picture of him? We're barely even friends. Actually, let me correct that—we're barely even acquaintances." Stiles raised both eyebrows at his younger cousin.
She gave him the puppy eyes. Damn it. He should have looked away—run across the street. Who cares if a truck hit him? They would be saving him from the embarrassment. "Please. I just want to see one picture." Diana pleaded, sticking her bottom lip out.
Melodramatically sighing, Stiles thumbed open his camera roll and went to the photo he had snagged of Derek brooding on the front porch of the Hale mansion. Derek may have caught him when the picture was taken. Stiles may have pretended to delete it before recovering it. He may have recovered it and forgotten to set it as Derek's contact photo. "Why can't you ever use your powers for good? Do they always have to be used for evil?" Stiles remarked as he forked his phone over to the seven-year-old.
"Damn." Jace whistled. "Look at you liking the guy in a black leather jacket."
Stiles snatched his phone back once they had looked their fill, turning the screen off. "We're never bringing this up again. Nope. Never. Nu-uh. Shush. Both of you." He scowled at them.
Diana stage-whispered to Jace. "Should we get him a leather jacket so he can be like his boyfriend." Stiles threw his hands up, a gurgled shout escaping his mouth—wishing the ground would open up and swallow him whole. Thank god Derek was thirteen hours away because he never wanted Derek to hear that. He would probably get thrown through a wall.
"Not my boyfriend." Stiles corrected once he had calmed down—relatively at least. It depended on how one defined being calm. He didn't add that a part of his heart—the part that was old and raw and bleeding even now when he had a smile on his face—wished that Derek was. He wanted that—wanted to explore his feelings and emotions—for just a single heartbeat before realizing that a relationship can't be formed based on one-sided feelings and those same emotions had the power to break him even more if he acknowledged them.
Diana continued pouting up at him. "Why not?" She crossed her arms with all of the petulance she could muster in her small frame. She glanced up at him with stubbornness that Stiles recognized strongly in his family. "You like him. You should be together." Diana stated.
Stiles swallowed nervously, tugging at the collar of his flannel. "You can't be with someone who doesn't have feelings back." Stiles corrected her softly. He glanced away, vainly stitching himself back together because he hadn't even touched upon the unrequited feelings, and he could spend the rest of his life comfortably avoiding them. "Alright—let's go get ice cream and forget this conversation ever happened." He clapped his hands together, tugging his cousins towards the stall.
As Diana ordered—a truly sugary concoction that had Stiles cringing because he knew that there would be a subsequent sugar rush and crash before the day was done—Jace stood beside him. "You want me to beat him up?" Jace offered, voice a low murmur.
He shot Jace an incredulous look. "He's a born wolf, Jace." Stiles rebuffed quietly.
"I could still take him." Jace puffed up his chest, toying with his pocketknife between agile fingers. Part of Stiles wanted to tell him to stop before he sliced off his finger and the other part wanted to ask Jace to teach him how to do that because it was kind of threatening and cool. "You sure, though?" He spoke again, double checking that Stiles hadn't changed in his mind during the moment of silence that stretched between them tensely.
Nodding, Stiles offered a fleeting grin. "I kind of hope you never meet him, now." He remarked, rubbing the back of his neck—pausing their conversation to order two scoops of cookie dough ice cream and waiting for Jace to order his own selected ice cream before the trio traveled back to their stall, ice cream cones in hand. "Note to self; never put Derek and Jace in the same room. Actually, I'll add another note: never put Jackson and Jace in the same room." He spoke in a slightly louder tone.
Golden eyebrows furrowed, "Jackson Whittemore—right?" Jace checked; nose wrinkling. "I vaguely remember him. Didn't people used to think we were related?" His voice was derisive.
Stiles cringed at the thought of Jackson being his cousin. Jackson Whittemore had been doing better since his rebirth as a wolf in the fleeting moments—but he was still an asshole and world-class douche. He hummed thoughtfully, covering his initial reaction. "Hm. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. A bit of an asshole personality. Right—you don't sound related at all on paper." His voice dripped with sarcasm. "Pretty sure if blonde egotistical pretty-boys were to take over the world, you two could pull it off."
Jace smirked. "The team-up from hell?" He guessed. "And aw—you're so sweet cousin, calling me pretty. I might faint from the flattery." Jace fluttered his eyelashes melodramatically.
Diana piped up and Jace cursed when he realized that she had heard his curse word—which really worsened his predicament. "Don't faint. You'd crack your head on the sidewalk and we don't need a Jacey with even more brain damage." Stiles rewarded her with the highest of fives because, it was official—Diana was his favorite cousin.
"You wound me, sis. Right here." Jace patted his chest.
"Just don't drown yourself in your own river of tears." Stiles deadpanned.
Diana laughed brightly while Jace scowled at them both. "You have corrupted my little sister. You're a bad influence, Stiles. A bad influence." Jace pointed a finger at Stiles as they approached the stall.
Chris didn't miss a beat. "Says the guy who taught Di 95% of the bad words she knows."
Monday approached far too quickly for Stiles' taste, though he understood that his father had taken Friday through Monday off from work, using a few of his vacation days provided by the sheriff station, and if he wanted to be able to visit again mid-August for Jace's birthday, then he would have to go back. That didn't mean Stiles liked the idea of his father going back to Beacon Hills—even if he did understand—though he hadn't shared that he had overheard his aunt and father's conversation.
Even days later, Stiles didn't know what he wanted to do. His mind kept going back and forth between staying and leaving and the silence from his end stretched a yawning chasm between him and the friends he had in Beacon Hills. It hadn't been until last night that he had managed to respond to Derek and Scott—they had disturbed a nest of pixies a few weeks back and needed his help and though Scott had tried to follow up with him after he had emailed the research over, a part of Stiles smarted at the fact that the only reason Derek's pack extended him any communication was when they needed something.
The decision to stay, on paper, looked so easy. The only thing tethering him to Beacon Hills was his father and mother but there were more things starting to tether him to the farm. It wasn't until he woke up that he thought that it was past time for him to reach out to Scott. If he was really planning on staying—he needed to bring it up to Scott. And if he couldn't bring it up to Scott because he was afraid that Scott asking if he was sure would crumble his resolve, then he wasn't ready to leave Beacon Hills behind.
"So, are you still going to be growing your hair out? Should I expect to see curls when I visit mid-August?" The sheriff of Beacon Hills was leaning against the doorframe as Stiles placed a paper-towel folded sandwich into a Ziploc bag. His father was also taking a few leftovers from their Fourth of July party yesterday—the fireworks lighting up the countryside were gorgeous, and it was even more hilarious when Jace almost lit himself on fire lighting one.
There was another thing, too. His father. Noah Stilinski had been the one to bring up Stiles staying—transferring his senior year to the local high school here instead of returning home—but Stiles didn't know if his father would be truly alright with being away from him for so long. They would have a few weekends, but it was a thirteen-hour drive, and they wouldn't have each other moments away or down the hall. A few weeks was one thing, but this might be months.
Could he really stay away from his home for so long?
Stiles shook the thought from his mind, realizing that his answer was taking a bit longer than appropriate for reassuring his dad that nothing was wrong. "As long as Diana keeps hiding my razor and giving me puppy eyes whenever I approach the bathroom planning on going back to the buzzcut. I'm serious, dad, she's got the worst puppy eyes and she uses those powers for evil." Stiles crossed his arms when his father started laughing at the comment. A half-smile twitched at his lips, giving away the falsehood of his petulance. "And I thought Scott and Isaac were awful about the puppy eyes, but Diana takes the cake—like, an entire, eight-layer cake."
Dad stooped to grab a water bottle from the pack by the fridge, opening it and chugging a quarter of it. "It's so hot here." His father offered for an explanation as Stiles raised an eyebrow at the near-desperate movement. "I don't know how you've adapted so quickly to it." He continued, grumbling.
"Dad, I've been here for over two weeks." Stiles shook his head with a smile. "I wish you could stay for a bit longer, though. I'm going to miss you." He continued; voice raw with honesty.
His father wrapped him in a quick hug before detangling, wiping at his forehead. "Too hot for hugs." The sheriff groaned.
"There are cool water bottles in the fridge." Stiles remarked while his father shot him a glare. He shrugged, lips twitching as he tried not to laugh. "What? Not my fault you were too busy dumping more water on your face than in your mouth to notice the giant fridge right in front of you." He teased, "Did Aunt Becca already get you plastic silverware for the leftovers? And do you need another sandwich? I can get you another." His hands fluttered at his sides as he rambled.
Dad nodded, "Remember that breathing is a necessity, Stiles." He spoke informatively. Both Stilinski men were silent for a second, before Stiles saw his father gearing up to say something and a stone settled in his stomach when he realized his avoidance of the topic would not keep it from being brought up. "You—You look really happy here, Genim. Like—it's—it's been too long since I've seen you smile and laugh like that." Dad started tentatively.
Swallowing roughly, Stiles opened his mouth. "Dad—"
Noah shook his head. "No—no we need to talk about this. Look, I'm not going to pretend that—that I know exactly what chased you away from home. Maybe it really was those boys after the game." Something dark settled in his expression then and Stiles knew if he breathed the word, his father would pistol-whip everyone involved until they knew Stiles was untouchable. "Or maybe something with your friends. I see Scott pretty often—Stiles and—and I know that he hasn't heard much from you. Which tells me that something happened between you two—something bad enough that you left because you two have been attached at the hip since you were five."
Cringing because that could be easily interpreted as feelings—which sounded incestuous to Stiles because Scott remained his brother. "Brothers fight, Dad." Stiles stated weakly. He knew him not denying that he was finding himself with problems with Scott spoke volumes. "I'll reach out to him, I will." He offered, averting his gaze to his fingers.
Dad's frown deepened. "That's not—that's not why I brought him up. I have no problem with you taking some space from Scott. I just want to—I want to make sure that you understand that—whether or not you and Scott get back to being brothers—you still have me. You still have Melissa." He reminded Stiles, drawing circles on the top of his hand. The motion was soothing, calming Stiles' erratic heart. "You've got a bunch of people that are here for you Stiles. More than you think."
Somehow his dad knew that that was exactly what he needed to here. He had been feeling isolated and alone for so long and to be told without drawbacks and in just a quiet moment. "I think it's time for me to reach out to Scott, though." Stiles sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand.
"What do you think you're going to say?"
He shrugged. "No idea." Stiles forced himself to laugh, electing to take a seat at the dining table. "I'm thinking about staying." He blurted out, cringing a second later at the abruptness of his statement. Stiles glanced up at his father after a second as the sheriff took the seat next to him.
The man swallowed roughly. "Can't blame you for that." He spoke after a few heartbeats passed. Stiles searched his father's eyes for answers—wondering what he really thought of it. He was thankful that their extended family was giving them some time to say goodbye and talk in away they haven't been able to with everyone around. "You look so happy here, Stiles. And I have to admit that I'm worried that the summer will end, and you will come back and regress into how you were before you left."
Stiles nodded, "I'm worried that I will, too." He answered honestly. "But—I think I do need to talk to Scott before I decide anything because I think that the only way to fix what's broken in our friendship is to finally have that conversation."
"That's a good idea." His dad squeezed his hand reassuringly.
"Ok—ok—I'm going to do it now." Stiles scrambled, getting his phone out of his pocket. He easily pulled up his conversation with Scott, skipping over the puppy chat. He froze, fingers stalling over the keyboard. "What should I say?" He glanced towards his father in askance.
His father raised his eyebrows. "Saying hey, how you've been sounds like a good place to start." Dad replied, amusement coloring his voice. "Start with the light stuff—you don't need to shove all of the heavy stuff down his throat just yet." He rubbed his back as Stiles finally got his thumbs to start moving. Hey, sorry I've been a bit distant, how you've been? He showed the screen to his dad, nonverbally asking for his opinion. "Looks good." Dad nodded approvingly and Stiles hit the send arrow.
Throwing his phone on the table, he buried his face in his arms. "I'm a mess." Stiles murmured, disgruntled—the words muffled by his arms and the table.
"You're just now realizing this." Dad snorted, "You've been a straight-up mess for eighteen years, Genim." Stiles smacked his father's shoulder in retaliation—it was completely true, but it was more of the unspoken truth.
His phone vibrated on the table a second later and he reached for it quickly. Scott had responded quicker than he thought his best friend might—what with past experience showing that Scott would take hours to answer because he was so easily distracted. His heart gave an uneasy thump—something that tasted and felt vaguely like hope coiling there. Turning his phone screen back on—it had darkened with him gawking for a few minutes—he opened the message sitting in his notifications.
Scott: Np. I've been good. Working on rebuilding the Hale mansion. Hard-work. Hbu? What have u been up to?
Biting his lip harshly, he responded—glancing once up at his father and offering a tentative smile. He typed out a response before showing the screen of the unsent message to his father. That's good. I'm good. Been spending a lot of time with cousins. At his father's nod, he sent the message, watching the three dots pop up as Scott started typing a response.
Scott: Surprised u r not demanding pics of new mansion.
He froze, wondering what he was supposed to say to that. What was the appropriate response? How was he supposed to respond? How would he normally respond? Stiles turned his phone screen off and buried his face in his hands once again. "Alright—what's wrong?" Dad queried.
"I don't know how I'm supposed to act." Stiles answered, sighing. He checked the time on his phone, "Shit. It's getting late—you should probably hit the road before you don't have enough time before your shift tomorrow to get a full-night of sleep." Stiles hastily stood up, trying to settle himself a bit. He sighed, trying to keep himself together because he was tired of feeling hurt and dancing around the topic and he really just wanted to text Scott the simple words. I heard you. I wasn't supposed to, but I did.
Digging his fingernails in his palm long enough to leave red, crescent-moon-shaped imprints, he accepted the hug his father offered him. "I could call out tomorrow." Dad offered and Stiles shook his head. "Help you work through this."
Stiles appreciated the offer and the gesture behind it—but he figured that this was something he needed to work through on his own and he didn't want his father to face any repercussions for the break he would take mid-August. "I'll be fine, Dad. Go home—say hi to Melissa for me. And remember to eat healthy. I mean it—no curly fries for you." He steered his father to the suitcase he had by the front door—the object was relatively light as his father hadn't packed as heavy as Stiles for the few days he would be there.
"I've been doing pretty well the past two weeks." Dad remarked, following him to his car. Stiles put the suitcase in the trunk, before turning to his father—their extended family had gone to town to go see some of their friends, well that was the excuses they had had for leaving, Stiles theorized they were just giving him space to say bye to his dad as they had bid their farewells last night. "I'm going to miss you. Text me. Love you, son." Dad gave him a long hug, swaying from side-to-side.
He laughed. "I can tell you something you won't miss—the heat. It's going to be worse in August." Stiles snickered at the disgruntled look his father pulled when he released his dad from the hug. Dad reached out, ruffling Stiles' hair and he ran his fingers through it—trying to return the short strands to some sort of order. His hair grew quickly, though it was still in that extremely awkward phase. "Text me when you get home." He ordered as his dad got into the already started car—he had doubtlessly started while Stiles had been inside getting his food together, and the food rested on the passenger seat.
"I will. Promise."
"Love you, dad." Stiles grinned. "Drive safe." He waved, taking a step back from the car.
"I'm not the one with the difficulty driving safe."
"Really feeling the love." He deadpanned.
The next few weeks passed quickly, Stiles texted Scott a bit more—messaging him every day—but he hadn't touched upon the fact that he was considering staying or that he had overheard their conversation that reminded him that he would never be a priority to his friends. Never being pack was pretty self-explanatory in terms of priority chain. He also messaged Isaac a bit more—Stiles had been closer to Scott and Isaac before he left, which was why their words hurt so much, especially the fact that their words resembled what Gerard Argent had snarled in his ear between kicks and blows.
It was difficult to know where the boundaries were because he didn't know when it would be considered him being too much and just not-Stiles. He was trying to be comfortable with who he was and felt like he was showing more of his true self with Thomas and Jace. He didn't have to talk all the time; he didn't want to always talk and that was ok. Finding himself—figuring out who he was wasn't the easiest thing in the world—but he was feeling a lot more comfortable in his own skin.
A lot more confident in who he was. His hair had also grown out—falling messily over his head—and he ran his fingers through the sweat-soaked strands of hair as he slung the long wooden staff through his arms, laying it across his shoulders. Grinning triumphantly at Chris—who was laying on the ground with his own staff beside him, propped up on his elbows and his eyes rolled when he caught sight of the grin on Stiles' face. "You're getting better." Chris grumbled, pulling himself to his feet.
"Are you kidding? I'm a fucking badass." Stiles grinned cheekily, twirling the staff between his fingers. A few weeks previous, he would have probably dropped it, but it spoke volumes of his skill increasing. They hadn't taken him with them when they went to go handle whatever threats popped up—which had him itching to help them, he could feel the desire to help threading through his bones. The same reason he spent an hour or so each day researching. His life had fallen into a sort of routine.
Wake up early, eat breakfast, help with the chores around the farm, go for a swim in the lake or take a shower, play videogames with Chris or work on art projects with Diana, train with Thomas, Jace, or Chris, eat dinner, watch a movie with Thomas, do some research with the new book he had purchased that had called to him, and then go to bed. There was some obvious variation in the small details of the day-to-day—sometimes they cut training to go to the farmers market and wonder around town and he met up with Izzy and a few of her friends.
Chris chuckled, dragging Stiles' wavering attention back to him. "I'm serious. Like—you can't tell me this isn't badass." Stiles could feel the wind whistling with the quick and sharp movements of the practiced steps. "God, when I got here I was like at this level of badass—" He held a hand at waist-level and then rose it to above his head, "—now I'm at this level—AKA, motherfucking badass."
His cousin rolled his eyes, stooping to pick up his own training staff from the dusty ground. Both of their shirts were stained with sweat and dirt—making them look like they had decided to roll around back and forth in a race on the barn floor rather than practice their defensive and offensive fight techniques. "Ok—maybe you shouldn't say that too loudly. Mom's going to start investing in a quarter stock if you keep that up." Chris warned.
"If you put a quarter in your no yelling sock every time your kid upsets you—soon you will have a weapon to beat them with." Stiles mimicked the meme, though he was mostly paraphrasing—he didn't remember the word for word of it, but he covered the gist of it. "Doesn't she already have a squirt gun?" He queried, remembering Aunt Rebecca whipping the aforementioned weapon on Jace and spraying him in the face with it several times when Diana cursed at the dining room table. It was funnier because Jace hadn't even said anything—before or after.
Chris snorted, doubtlessly remembering other instances Stiles hadn't been present for. "I'm pretty sure the squirt gun is solely for Jace." Chris remarked as they got into their ready positions. After a few seconds, Chris darted forward—quick-footed and Stiles brought the stick up to block the attack from the left, the wooden items banging together with a loud smack. Stiles countered the move once he rebuffed the other's weapon, swinging it to smack against Chris' shoulder—which the other blocked. "Angle your body a bit more this way. It'll give the swing more force." Chris critiqued.
Stiles adjusted his feet, twisting his body backwards as he redid the move. "Better?" He questioned with a half-smirk. Chris nodded, cringing slightly—before parrying the blow and matching it with another that Stiles lithely moved away from. It was entirely a good thing that he had gotten the self-defense training before the offensive training because he found it easier to duck and dodge and block blows.
That and the fact that his ADHD mind was working quicker to analyze what movements would be better. He could also find yet another reason Thomas and Jace had encouraged him to blow-up when he first started—the emotions had left him rocky beforehand, unsure and unsteady despite his best efforts to dismiss them. Forcing himself to face them and own up to a majority of them helped immensely.
"You know if we were ever stuck in a real-life Seven Days to Die—we would be some kickass zombie killers." Stiles commented idly. Chris smacked him on the wrist for his lapse in focus and he followed up the move with a feint to the left before coming from the right.
Chris rolled his eyes. "Don't get too overly confident, Sti." He warned.
Stiles could see where he was coming from—overconfidence when dealing with the type of creatures they would all be dealing with, though the creatures themselves varied, would lead to him making mistakes. He might leave himself unguarded and be killed. "I'll be just the right amount of confident." Stiles attempted to assuage the other's fears. "If you're not confident in your moves—then you falter and stumble and that might get you killed as well." He continued. "Happy medium."
His cousin nodded. "Alive medium is more like it." Chris answered. The only sound was their parrying back and forth—a collection of landing hits with thumps of wood on flesh, the sticks meeting, and the scuffling of feet. "So—what's this other Chris you know like?" He questioned, changing the subject.
Surprised by the abrupt question, Stiles nearly let Chris get past his defenses—bringing the staff up in time to block a blow to his chest. "What made you think of him?" Stiles queried, bewildered.
Chris shrugged. "Maybe because we share the same name—and you said he might be on your side. Well—not a completely rotten apple, at least." He stated and Stiles exhaled, brow furrowing as he thought. Chris Argent was someone he had interacted with a few times—and he had mainly regarded the man as honor-bound but heavily conflicted. He didn't completely blame him for that—it couldn't have been easy to remain with certain humilities raised by a monster like Gerard Argent.
"He's a bit of a conflicted guy—I think." Stiles answered after a few more minutes of contemplation. "He tries to do the right thing—honor the code, which is kind of identical to the one you all follow—but he's been manipulated in the past. Besides, though I don't completely agree with everything he's done, I can see where he's coming from and sympathize without condoning it—you know—he did get me away from Gerard Argent which I can't not be grateful for." He rambled slightly.
Well, not slightly. There was no slight to his rambling. It was a lot. "So—not someone I'd want to meet." Chris summarized.
Stiles shook his head. "I think if he met you guys—he'd probably see how happy people can be when they're honoring a code that has morals. Though—I've got to admit, putting any of you in the same room is low-key kind of terrifying to me." He admitted as they both paused once Chris had knocked him to the floor, tripping him up with the staff. They grabbed their water bottles and Stiles took a deep swig of his. Another combination he didn't even want to voice was Chris and Erica—oh god, Chris would be traumatized.
"Well, that wasn't incredibly obvious." Chris sarcastically commented, finishing his water, and grabbing another form the cooler. The summer heat had come and gone in waves, though the recent storm had brought in another heat wave—though it was supposed to rain on Thursday which would hopefully make it slightly better. "Not like you haven't mentioned it a dozen times in the past month and a half." He continued, voice dripping with a high level of sarcasm.
Stiles raised both eyebrows. "Holy crap, it really has been a month and a half." He could feel his eyes widening at the thought. He had been keeping track of the weeks, but he kind of miss the month-mark of it, which was kind of stupid in hindsight.
"No, really. I hadn't noticed." Chris rolled his eyes.
Glancing over his cousin with furrowed eyebrows, Stiles frowned slightly. "Alright—someone sounds like he took extra sarcasm doses in his coffee today—what's going on?" Stiles hopped up on the stall door and sat down, patting the spot beside him.
Raising his eyebrows, Chris stared up at him before he finally gave in with a reluctant sigh and hopped up beside him. "Just having a few problems with some friends of mine—nothing to worry about." Chris grumbled, crossing his arms, and angling his face away. Stiles nudged him, reminding him nonverbally that his cousins had helped him through some of his own negativity regarding his friends and he could offer a shoulder in the same fashion. "Ok—fine. Two of my friends are dating and they're hella toxic together and I keep feeling like there are sides to it that I have to pick between which sucks because I thought the high school drama was behind us."
Stiles patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Damn—that sucks. Want me to make them feel hella awkward? I am the best at making people feel awkward and annoyed." He offered a suggestive smile, bumping Chris' shoulder with his own.
"No. I'm not annoyed at them enough to subject them to that brand of inhumane torture." Chris denied, shaking his head—which Stiles privately disagreed with. While Chris was normally quietly snarky and sarcastic when compared against Jace's in your face level of sarcasm and humor, he had always been one to inject a dry statement here and there. "So, got any wise suggestions for me, little cousin?" Chris queried after a few heartbeats passed in companionable silence.
Stiles hummed thoughtfully. "You should probably avoid calling me little cousin, I'm nearly as tall as you and taller than Jace." Something that he was incredibly ecstatic over because it made Jace particularly disgruntled by the fact that Stiles was taller than him. "Ok—full honesty—tell them that their shit is their shit and they can rant and all of that about each other but no dividing the friend group. They chose to date in the friend group, they get to suffer the consequences if it doesn't work out." He crossed his arms.
Chris sighed. "They're both incredibly stubborn." He remarked,
He raised his eyebrows at his cousin. "You're also stubborn, Chris." Stiles reminded him. "If they want to be stubborn in this theoretical break-up world—then be just as or more stubborn right back to them."
"You should learn to take your own advice." Chris pointed out. Stiles shot him a glance, wondering when the topic had somehow twisted back on his friendship problems. Did it count as non-existent friendship problems because they had sounded like they didn't want to be his friends much when he overheard that conversation? If he were being completely transparent with himself, the bitterness came and went. Today it decided to steamroll. "Oh—come on—you can't tell me that you haven't been struggling to be your stubborn, asshole-usual-self with them."
"There's got to be a compliment in there somewhere if you view that statement with a heavy microscope." Stiles quipped reflexively. "Otherwise—you're brutally demolishing my self-confidence at the moment."
Chris rolled his eyes. "You've been spending too much time around Jace. You're starting to sound like him when insulted." He muttered to himself, detracting from his original point. He narrowed his eyes at Stiles—who widened his own innocently—picking up on the flat attempt. "Anyways, if I'm going to be honest with my friends and stubborn as hell with them—then you have to tell Scott that they treated you pretty shittily and you're torn between transferring your senior year to here and going back to Beacon Hills." Chris delivered the ultimatum unflinchingly.
Stiles stared at him for a few moments, before looking away with a heavy exhale. "How did you know I was thinking about moving here?" He questioned after a few seconds passed, voice tight.
His cousin shrugged. "Mom told me. Said that Uncle Noah had brought it up when he visited and figured he would have brought it up to you. That and you don't mention going back there that often anymore." Chris answered factually. "Look—we'd love it if you came to live with us permanently—it's been awesome spending so much time with you Stiles. You fit really well. But—can you honestly say that you think of this as home or as a vacation?" He spoke softly.
That question surprised him, and he found himself unknowing of the answer. He could easily visualize the farm becoming his home—but, in the moment, when he thought of home, he thought of Beacon Hills. He thought of his dad and his mom and even the likes of Scott McCall and Isaac Lahey and Derek Hale. And, even when he considered staying—he knew he would eventually wind up back in Beacon Hills.
A pang of longing hit him in that moment—longing for his own bed and his own room. Longing to watch movies with Derek's pack. Longing to be a part of rebuilding the Hale mansion, contributing his ideas as they progressed, even if they were outwardly regarded as unwelcome.
His voice was a whisper when he next spoke. "I don't know." Stiles answered honestly. "It should be so easy to see it that way—but I don't." He tossed Chris a bewildered and slightly desperate look. "I want it to feel like home because I feel like you guys have my back. Like I could call, and you all would come running and I have called for Scott before and he either approached at a leisurely stroll or didn't come at all." Stiles dug at the dirt underneath his fingernails.
"They fucked up—massively." Chris agreed. "But I think they care more than you think."
Stiles glanced at him, eyebrows nearly disappearing underneath the hair that clung to his forehead. "What makes you say that?" He questioned.
Chris glanced down at the floor, swinging his legs back and forth idly. "Because they texted you nearly everyday since you got here. Because they've called you a few times. People that don't care or that are using you don't reach out like they do." Chris put a hand on his shoulder.
He bit his tongue—trying to not say that maybe they were keeping up the pretense of friendship, but his mind did latch onto the truth in Chris' words. They had reached out—every single member of Derek's pack within days of his leaving. He had only been responsive recently to Scott and Isaac but that didn't change the fact that Erica, Boyd, Lydia, and even Jackson had also contributed to messages for him. Checking in that he was still alive. Asking what he was up to. Sending random, funny memes.
Squeezing his shoulder, Chris offered a warm grin. "I'm not saying that you need to go back tomorrow and pretend everything's fine. Because it's not. It wasn't for a very long time. Feelings like you were having don't just appear overnight, Stiles. They build and build until a straw breaks the camel's back." Chris informed him. "In fact, I think that you need to skype Scott and tell him that you left because you were feeling undervalued and doubting your own self-worth. Make him sweat a little at the thought of you leaving." The grin turned into a slight smirk.
Biting his lip, Stiles loosened a chuckle. "I knew that your endgame was torturing them in some way." He leaned his shoulder against the wooden beam. "What if—" He licked his lips, voice wavering into nothing for a second. Chris' probing gaze against the side of his face encouraged him to start again. "What if Scott promises that things will change and then they do for a little while before going back to how they were? What do I do then?" Stiles asked, giving his cousin a helpless look.
Chris looked thoughtful. "I think you'd regret not giving him a chance because what if that doesn't happen? What if confronting this now bridges the gap between you before it gets too wide? And even, on the rare chance, that he does do that—then you can call us, and we'll come kick some serious furball ass." He crossed his arms, looking rather proud of his solution.
"You mean you'll send Diana to whack them with cardboard branches from her costume." Stiles deadpanned. They both shared a laugh at the memory. In the second summer play, Diana had been cast as a tree and took her surprising disgruntlement out by hitting people with the branches during and after the play. It was hilarious. Something Chris had recorded and immediately put on YouTube.
He nodded. "Yeah—we'll definitely let her go in first."
Stiles burst out laughing at the mental image of short, blonde Diana in her costume attacking Derek Hale with branches made of cardboard. If that ever did happen, he would need to record it and make multiple copies of it so he could have that golden moment for the rest of his life. "You saw the picture of Derek, right? I just got a mental image of Diana attacking him with those branches. He would be so confused." Stiles shared.
Chris burst out laughing as well. "That would be awesome—we should let that happen purely for the YouTube views." Chris remarked. Stiles shot him a dubious look and Chris nodded. "I said what I said—we're definitely going to let that happen someday. We will visit Beacon Hills purely for that." He added.
"Should I be sad that you wouldn't be visiting it for your own family and instead visiting it to harass a twenty-two-year-old man?" Stiles dryly asked. Chris patted his shoulder consolingly. "You guys are the worst. Like, the absolute worst. You deserve ribbons for your levels of worse-ness." He folded his arms across his chest.
Chris snorted. "Please—like you wouldn't be on stage with us gleefully accepting that ribbon." He stated with one eyebrow raised.
Stiles nodded seriously. "You are completely right." The smile on his lips ruined the illusion of him being serious. "Alright, so if I skype Scott tonight—you have to tell your friends that you won't be picking sides." He held out his pinkie for Chris so they could swear on it. Chris rolled his eyes, but interlocked their pinkies, giving a firm shake of his hand. Stiles hopped off the stall. "Alright—let's actually get back to training before Thomas becomes concerned by the lack of fighting sounds." Stiles picked up both of their staffs, tossing one to Chris.
They didn't need much more preamble before they resumed their training.
Opening his laptop—having to plug it in before dinner because Stiles had forgotten to when he used it last night and it had died during the day—he sent Chris a quick message alerting him that he was honoring his end of their bargain. Stiles connected his laptop to the internet before opening his skype and checking to see if Scott was already online. It would probably be around dinner-time in Beacon Hills—an early one at that for the elderly seniors in their community—so he figured Scott might be free from his constraints of helping reconstruct the Hale mansion.
The wolves of the pack were doing much of the heavy-lifting under the critical eye of both Derek and Lydia—that much Stiles had gathered from his messaging with Scott, though he had no idea where they were at pack-wise. He figured that they might be getting along a bit better since the air had been cleared, but he wasn't privy to private matters of Derek's pack despite being involved in the puppy chat. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he exhaled—trying to dispel the residual bitterness.
Since Scott wasn't online, he sent his best friend—former best friend?—a message asking if he wanted to skype. He swung around in Thomas' computer chair, eyes on the ceiling as he awaited a response and occasionally tapping the mouse panel to keep the screen illuminated.
Thomas had been perfectly fine with Stiles using his room to skype Scott—having probably predicted that he'd want to have a conversation with Scott McCall at some point while he was there. Stiles was hoping that his cousins wouldn't be making an abrupt entrance to interrogate and harass Scott—before realizing that that was a move that Jace Haerviu would be heavily inclined towards.
A few minutes later, his phone vibrated with the thumbs-up emoji. Stiles scooted the computer chair over to his laptop, resting his elbows on the desk it was on top of. He waited for the little online signature to appear by Scott's contact name, drumming his nails against the wooden surface underneath his elbows. He almost wanted to bite his nails from the anxiousness—but he was attempting to shake that nasty, nervous habit.
When the signature finally popped up, he exhaled and clicked the call button—turning the volume at an appropriate volume on his laptop. Stiles glanced over his reflection in the laptop camera—briefly taken aback by how different he looked. A dark tan had settled over his features and more freckles decorated his skin. Lithe muscles had built in his arms and his hair was longer—not kept at the buzzcut it had been at before. He looked like a different person—a stranger, but still, somehow completely Stiles Stilinski.
Nervously, he wondered if Scott would recognize him or be as taken aback by the differences in his best friend as he was. He was slightly scared that Scott wouldn't even notice all the individual differences.
He exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose frustratedly with himself before lowering his hand as the call was answered and Scott's image filled the screen, replacing his own. "Sorry about that Stiles, I had to wait for Peter to give me the passcode for the Wi-Fi out here—he was being incredibly stingy." Well, that answered that question of whether Derek's pack was getting closer and starting to act like a family. Scott answered the call with a look directed to Peter, before rolling his eyes and glancing at the screen.
"Why does that not surprise me?" Stiles answered. He lifted an eyebrow when Scott's own eyebrows raised, and his eyes widened. "Um—dude? You alright over there. Please tell me you haven't somehow managed to anger another set of pixies." His other eyebrow joined the first, feeling a hint of concern for the frozen expression. "Did you break the internet?" Stiles queried.
Scott opened and closed his mouth a few times. Stiles waited, drumming his nails against the desk. A few more minutes of awkward silence passed as Scott continued to gape, hand lifting and raising to join the movements of his mouth.
He bit his lip, trying not to laugh. "Can someone please un-break Scott?" Stiles finally spoke. He waved a hand in front of the camera. "Hello? Scotty-boy. Come in Scotty-boy. Could you please rejoin the land of actual consciousness, please and thank you?" He added when it seemed that no one else would be joining the skype call to smack Scott upside the head to bring him back to the world of people who let sounds come out of their mouths.
Another few minutes passed in the same leg. Before Scott finally spoke. "Dude—you grew out your hair!" Scott exclaimed.
"Me growing out my hair caused your mind to break. Jesus, Scott. You need to integrate yourself with society more. Haircuts and people growing hair is a regular thing." Stiles quipped reflexively. He felt a bit more comfortable over the skype call then during the text messages—though he did bite his lip to keep himself from rambling any further, counting inside his head to ten.
Scott continued to gape. "You got a tan!"
Stiles snorted. "The wonders of what happens when skin is exposed to sunlight. Did you really spend all of biology sniffing Allison's hair rather than paying attention in class?" He cringed slightly at the tactless mention of Allison, before shrugging it off. Be unapologetically yourself, Stiles. His brain was the worst at giving pep-talks. Like it was getting a 5% rating. It could feed his mouth with witty commentary, but it sucked at giving him pep-talks. It could give other people pep-talks. But no, not him.
His best friend gestured emphatically. "Muscles." Scott stated.
Shaking his head with a mimicry of disapproval, Stiles rolled his eyes. "Ok—you seriously need to be paying attention during science this year, Scotty-boy. Everyone has muscles on their body—it is part of the human body. You know muscles, tendons, ligaments." He knew that Scott was not mentioning muscles as a general thing but could not resist from teasing Scott on his habit of not using complete sentences when taken by surprise. How was his best friend supposed to keep up witty commentary with surprise supernatural threats?
The other sputtered incoherently for a few moments. "You have muscles." Scott remarked, voice turning slightly hysterical.
"Pretty sure we just covered that I've always had muscles. Kind of wouldn't be able to semi-function as a human without them, Scotty-boy." Stiles quipped. He glanced down at his arms, they had built a lean, lithe definition recently, but he didn't know why Scott was reacting like he was a completely different looking person. It's not like he changed his eye or hair color—though Scott's theatrics made it seem like he had dyed his hair pink and got purple contacts.
Scott rolled his eyes. "You have notable muscles." His voice had lowered back to a reasonable pitch and Stiles briefly pitied the wolves that might be in the room with him. Then he wondered who exactly was with Scott and why they had let Stiles endure a Scott with half of a functional brain. It was rather rude.
He shrugged, "I bought that shake-weight you see on TV. Ten minutes a day, every day." Stiles snorted. "Ok—fine—in all seriousness, my cousins have been giving me some self-defense training." He informed Scott.
"And you couldn't have mentioned that in your messages because—?" Scott's voice tapered off, eyebrow raising. Stiles noticed the subtle differences in his best friend—though not much had changed beyond his haircut. Thank god Scott had finally gotten the hint to ditch the Justin Bieber haircut—Stiles loathed that stupid haircut. Like, he had contemplated sneaking into Scott's room in the middle of the night to get rid of it somehow.
Stiles pasted an innocent smile on his face. "You didn't ask." He spoke cheerily.
Unsurprisingly, his best friend started choking. Stiles refrained from telling Scott that he shouldn't start choking on ghost dick but figured it might be a bit offensive considering they were at the Hale mansion. "I'm sorry—since when—you never even told me that you might want some self-defense lessons." Scott sputtered, voice raising.
He pinned his best friend with a look. "Probably since we found out that—hey, creatures that go bump in the night are real things. And thankfully nothing like Twilight. I mean could you imagine Derek turning into a giant chihuahua?" Stiles shuddered, snickering liberally at the thought, nonetheless. He was kind of hoping Derek was there to growl at the insult even if Scott's computer mic didn't pick up on that. "Sometime around then, my brain probably decided—hey, puny human here, might want to know how to get back up if someone punches you in the face." He remarked.
Scott nodded, "Ok—I get the necessity for it. But—if you wanted to learn self-defense, you could have asked one of us to teach you. We would have helped." Scott countered, sounding somewhat upset.
"Ok. One—when this all started, Scotty-boy, you tried to eat me. You didn't have the control to teach me self-defense and since when did you even know self-defense. Pretty sure the werewolf gift doesn't automatically reward you with a crash course on it." Stiles lifted a finger, "Second—who else would I have even asked? Pretty sure Derek wanted to kill me at some point between all the death threats and wall slamming. Isaac might have been a good choice but would have felt super guilty if he even left a bruise. Jackson would have gleefully put me on my ass without actually teaching me to defend it. Lydia and Erica would have probably stabbed me with their high heels. And Boyd would have walked away before I finished asking." He lifted another finger.
"Maybe in the beginning." Scott conceded, "But not before you left to go see your aunt and cousins." He argued and Stiles raised both eyebrows dubiously. He bit his tongue though, trying to not remark the unsaid third point of him not being pack and having literally no one else. Why would the pack extend help to someone that would never be one of them?
He clapped his hands together, "I do have an uncle, too. Alright—well moving on—"
Scott didn't let up on the topic, brow pinched. "No. You don't believe me. You actually don't believe me." Scott sounded incredibly hurt and Stiles felt an inkling of sadness because he didn't want to hurt Scott's feelings. He wasn't a complete asshole, contrary to popular belief and would never want someone to hurt as he had been hurt. "Why wouldn't you believe that I would help you?"
Ok, so apparently they were going to have this conversation sooner rather than later. And he could totally do this. He had been preparing himself for the difficult conversation since he made that bargain with Chris. "I don't know." Stiles wanted to just say it, spit the words out. I heard you. I heard you, I heard you.
His best friend's voice was flat when he spoke. "You don't know."
"That is what I said—thank you for the echoing effect though." Stiles stated dryly. He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. Closing his eyes, he steeled himself—steeling his heart because this next part—this next part was going to hurt. "Probably because I know I'm not pack." He offered after a few minutes.
Scott's voice raised, dubious and hurt. "What is that supposed to mean? Of course, you're—" He was nearly shouting the words, voice turning into a low growl.
Biting his lips, Stiles opened his mouth, though his words were lost in the flush of words from Scott. "Scott, I—" He clamped his mouth shut, not even bothering to finish. He knew it would be useless because Scott was speaking too loudly to hear the voice through the speakers of his laptop.
"—pack. You've always been pack, Stiles. Why the hell would you think otherwise?" Scott continued. "You're pack to me, Stiles. How could you possibly think that you're not? I really don't get it. Please, explain it to me."
He asked for the explanation, but he was speaking too loudly to hear the answer. "Scott—" Stiles started again, raising his voice slightly.
Scott glared at him with flashing gold eyes. "I mean, what the hell Stiles?"
Scowling, Stiles met his glare squarely. "Are you done or are you going to keep talking over me?" Stiles asked tersely. "Never thought that it'd be you talking over me in a conversation." He murmured thoughtfully to himself before shaking his head. "Ok. Ok. I've been avoiding this long enough." He spoke quietly, trying to make sure that the mic didn't pick up on the sound. "I heard you, Scott." Stiles finally glanced up to meet Scott's flickering gold and brown gaze.
Brows furrowing, Scott looked confused. "What are you talking about?"
"Did you read some of my research?" Stiles abruptly changed the topic.
"You're giving me real whiplash here." Scott muttered warningly.
Stiles rolled his eyes. "And you're giving off a vibe that you've been taking lessons on how to threaten and scare people from Derek Hale." He countered. Running a hand down his face, he sighed. "Before I left, I was attempting to develop a way to sneak up on supernatural creatures. Having something like that would make it easier to deal with omega wolves and whatever else goes bump in the night because we would be able to send someone in to gather information on their plans without being attacked." Stiles explained.
His best friend still looked confused. "Ok? And—what does that have to do with anything?" Scott queried.
Briefly, Stiles wondered if it was possible to ship Scott brain cells on eBay. Wishful thinking. "I was testing out concoctions on you and your band of furballs." Stiles answered. "Hence the smelling off every so often. So—yeah—was a silent member of the conversation Saturday night before pack-night officially started. You know, the part where you were like Stiles is annoying and too much for me and wanting space and Derek was all for quoting the Lion King II banishment scene." He crossed his arms. "I heard you sums that all up pretty nicely, don't you think? It also belongs on a segment of pranks gone wrong."
Scott was quiet—face pale. In fact, that entire end of the conversation was quiet—giving Stiles the impression that his best friend was not even remotely alone. "You heard that?" Scott finally spoke, cringing.
"Yup." Stiles answered with false cheeriness. "Every word up until Derek declared that I will never be one of you. Decided to get the hell out of dodge before there weren't any pieces of my heart left to break. Needed a few pieces to remain, you know?" He continued, speaking with the same level of cheerful spirit.
The other looked incredibly guilty, pale. "Stiles—I'm so—I'm so sorry."
He shrugged. "Don't worry about it. It's cool. You don't need to apologize, Scotty-boy." Stiles waved his hands emphatically back and forth. He didn't really look at Scott's face on the computer screen, choosing to instead look at a spot on the window. "Probably needed to hear it so that I could come here. And—better that I hear it now then later. I mean later, I probably wouldn't have Diana willing to come beat you up with cardboard branches." He chuckled wryly at the thought. "Which I would definitely need videos of. And Pictures. And probably post it on YouTube."
Scott still looked like he wanted to apologize. "Stiles—I never meant for—"
He made another dismissive hand gesture. "Dude—seriously—don't worry about it. It's cool. I mean, do I wish you would have told me that shit to my face? Yeah. But—I can't be mad at you for being honest with yourself. I wish you would have been honest with me. So—yeah. Stop apologizing, man." Stiles grinned, false-bright and lying through his teeth because he was still hurting and upset. "Besides, pat on the back to us for making our friendship last for over a decade. Proud of that accomplishment. Sucks that we couldn't make it to two decades—but, it's totally fine." He continued.
"Wait! What?" Scott sounded completely shocked.
Raising both eyebrows at the flabbergasted look on Scott's face, Stiles shrugged. "You don't have to pretend anymore, dude. I get it. We grew apart. It happens. Sucky part of life, but it happens. Besides, you clearly don't really like who I am as a person anymore. So, stop pretending." His voice turned serious at the end. "I'm being completely serious, Scott. There's a point where pretending to be nice and like someone is just—building false hope and it's cruel. So, please, just stop, alright?" Stiles finished, biting his lip to force himself to not show the heartbreak he felt.
He didn't want it to end like this—but if he tried to fight it. If he tried to force Scott to be his friend—wouldn't that just prolong the ending? Better to cut it off before his heart could break more. "What the hell? No. I'm not going to just stop. Jesus Christ, Stiles. You're my best friend. You're my fucking brother. So, no. I'm not just going to give up on over a decade of fucking friendship over a few annoyed words. Do you honestly think I don't like you? Over a few moments where I was just annoyed?" Scott countered, looking like he was gearing up for a fight.
"This isn't just a few words, Scott." Stiles buried his face in his hands, shaking. "This isn't just a few fucking words. It's dozens of moments. Not just that one moment. But dozens of them. Dozens of times when it felt like I was more your sidekick than your best friend or brother. It's not something that just developed in one fucking night, ok? It's not. And I—God—I have to turn you away before you can turn me away completely. I have to protect myself." He could feel the tears sliding down his face, rocking slowly back and forth.
It felt like he was on the verge of a panic attack. Like he couldn't even breathe. "Stiles, I could never turn you away. I'm never going to do that. Do you understand me? You're stuck with me, for life. You're my fucking brother, Stiles." Scott's voice turned soothing—finally picking up on the fact that Stiles was so far from ok that it wasn't even funny.
Tears dribbled down his face, dropping onto the desk. He sniffed quietly. "I can't. I can't—God—I can't. And you were on his side, and I can't Scott. And it wouldn't have felt this bad a few months ago. But then Gerard—and he said nearly the exact same thing. And it was like I was right back in that god-forsaken basement. And I can't go back there. I can't ever go back there. I never want to feel like that again. Like I'm alone. Like no one's coming. And no one came. No one came. No one came." Stiles knew that his cousins wanted to run in there then, shut the laptop and comfort him and he was grateful for a moment that they wouldn't. That they were giving the moment to crumble so he could be built back up again in a way that was more whole.
His best friend's voice was stern when he spoke. "Stiles, look at me. Stiles, look at me." The words made Stiles slowly lower his hands, his legs were curling to his chest on the computer chair. Scott was staring at him, eyes glowing and expression fiercely protective. "Whatever—whatever Gerard Argent told you. Whatever he did to you. He was wrong. Ok? He was so, unbelievably wrong." Scott insisted sternly.
More tears fell from his eyes, and he could see the glisten of them reflected in Scott's eyes. "Why does it hurt?" Stiles whispered, wiping harshly at his face, and digging the heel of his hand into his eye. "Why does it still hurt? The bruises—they're gone. So why does it still hurt?" He didn't think Scott had the answer for that—knew he probably wouldn't know the answer. "It wasn't even designed to hurt me—it was supposed to hurt the people who cared about me. So why does it still fucking hurt?"
It wasn't his face or ribs that hurt this time, but his chest—his heart. "I don't know." Scott whispered; expression pained. Stiles lowered his hand as he watched a tear fall from Scott's eye. "I do know that you're my brother and when—whenever you're hurting like this. Like you have been for the past few months and it kills me to know that you've been in pain like this. You need to tell me. Ok? You have to tell me. I'm your brother, too. And I am always—always going to be there for you. Don't shut me out. Don't bottle it all up. Don't pretend it's not happening because I'm here. I'm here and I've got you." He promised.
"We're here, too." Isaac contributed to the conversation, stepping clearly into the screen. He sat beside Scott; eyes fixated on Stiles. "Ok? Do you understand that? We're here too. You have all of us, Stiles. Not just Scott." He continued, leaning forward, eyes shining with his promise of that security. "And don't act like you hadn't already guessed that our pack was here—we let you two have that illusion of privacy but now it's our turn to tell you that Gerard Argent was a fucking asshole and wrong for every fucking thing he did."
Stiles leaned back, tipping his head up and exhaling heavily to stop himself from letting even more tears slip. He had to get a grip on himself—regain some of that confidence he had had when he first called Scott. Wait, his mind decided, give yourself just a minute. Another minute and then he could worry about fixing himself. At the farm, he had been doing good—he had been eating full meals instead of snacks sporadically. He had been sleeping more hours each night. He was even spending time outside and being taught self-defense and he was getting good at it.
Gerard Argent hadn't completely fucked up his life. There were still things that he had to look forward to—and soon, the elderly bastard wouldn't even be a frequent or passing thought because the emotional side would fade. He had to believe that.
And right now—in this conversation, he knew that he wasn't going to transfer to the high school here. He wasn't going to stay away from his home. He wasn't going to give Gerard Argent or anyone who agreed with him and had been involved the satisfaction of that victory. "So, we've discovered Gerard Argent was even more of an asshole than we thought." Jackson added and Stiles glanced at the screen once more to see that Scott had moved the laptop so that the camera picked up on a piece of every member of the pack.
Unsurprisingly, Jackson was a bit further out of the camera frame, sitting next to Boyd with Lydia perched on the arm-rest next to him. "Would it be too Chris Evans' Captain America of me to scold you for your language." Stiles spoke dryly, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. "Walls are a bit thin—pretty sure my baby cousin is—well, actually, never-mind, she's probably heard worse from Jace. Continue." He pinched the bridge of his nose, clamping his mouth shut, before he counted to ten under his breath.
"You ok over there, Batman?" Erica questioned; voice unusually soft.
Stiles offered a half-smile paired with a shrug. "It's a work in progress." He remarked. "An extreme work in progress—like I'm probably 48% there—but, yeah. Work in progress and the percentage actually depends on your definition of ok." Stiles corrected himself.
Isaac chuckled, raising his eyebrows. "What's your general definition of ok?"
He bit his lip, thinking about it. "General definition?" He tasted the words on his lips thoughtfully. "Well—panic attack is mostly over. There's a fifty-fifty chance I won't have nightmares tonight. You should probably feel bad for Thomas because he's going to have to deal with that brand of messiness. So, I'd say I'm moderately ok." Stiles remarked.
Lydia tilted her head to one side, strawberry blonde hair falling over one shoulder. "That doesn't really reassure me of being moderately ok." She spoke slowly.
"Well, moderate is better than minimally but less than fully." Stiles shrugged once more. "Besides, the path of self-destruction is blocked off for now—so, that should be reassuring. Take comfort in the metaphorical barricade blocking that road." He added. He shifted his weight minimally at the thoroughly unimpressed looks he was receiving from Derek's pack—even Derek himself was directing that look towards him. "Ok—so you're all not the least bit curious about meeting my cousins? I mean, I don't want to physically put you all in the same room together, mainly because Jace can be a bit of an idiot." Stiles changed the subject.
He liked to think he was getting a bit better at that. Probably not in reality, though. "I've met him." Scott reminded him, shifting uncomfortably on the sofa. "He's the blonde one, right." His best friend checked, looking thoughtful.
Stiles nodded. "Yup. Remember him? He's the one people were convinced was somehow related to Jackson because blonde hair, blue eyes, egotistical." He rattled the three traits off on his fingers. "Also—he might be a bit inclined to violence and threatening. I'd say sorry, but at least I'm giving you a warning that you all might not be favorites to my cousins at the moment. Chris probably won't threaten you with violence—at least, not loudly—but Thomas? Jace? Diana? They're definitely related to me." He continued, cringing awkwardly.
His best friend furrowed his eyebrows. "Isn't Diana seven?" He questioned dubiously.
"She's my cousin, Scott." Stiles deadpanned, offering the statement like it was explanation enough. "You knew me when we were seven—you know how I have always been. And Diana? She was in a summer play and cast as the tree. No one knew that she didn't want to be the tree till the night of the play. When she literally started smacking people with cardboard branches from her hand-made costume." He clarified, chuckling fondly at the memory. "She's seven and she wants to watch thriller, horror movies. What seven-year-old likes horror movies? She's a demon."
Erica snickered. "Your seven-year-old cousin sounds cooler than you, Batman."
He rolled his eyes. "She's evil and somehow manages to pull off puppy eyes better than Scott and Isaac—combined. Like, she used her powers for evil. She stole my razor." Stiles ran his fingers through his hair for emphasis.
Lydia crossed her arms. "She's a prodigy then. The haircut actually looks good on you, Stiles." Lydia stated. Stiles stared at her for a moment, wondering when they got to the phase where the queen bee paid him compliments. "Better than the buzzcut—at least. Though you could attempt to style it instead of letting it do whatever that is." She gestured vaguely.
Jackson grumbled under his breath. "He still looks like he washes it with three-in-one."
Stiles glanced to the side as the door quietly opened. Jace, Chris, and Thomas were there with the oldest rolling his eyes and shoving the former two further into the room. "Well, hello there!" Jace greeted, crossing his arms, and smirking as he moved Stiles out of the way. "I don't believe we've all been formally introduced. I'm Jace. Here to give you all the shovel talk." He continued, smirk widening.
"You know the shovel talk is supposed to be for significant others, Jacey." Stiles deadpanned. "Does it look like we're all in a polyamorous relationship?" He added.
Jace raised an eyebrow. "Do you honestly want me to answer that?"
Stiles bit his lip. "I'm kind of terrified of that."
Chris casually smacked Jace on the back of the head. "Excuse me—what was that for?" Jace scowled at his twin. The other just gave him a look that questioned whether Jace still had some brain cells that he used floating underneath the blonde hair. "Rude." He murmured. "Anyways—we're here to declare war on you." He added, speaking seriously to the group on the screen.
"Wait, what? Why are you trying to declare war? Jace, you're not allowed to declare war on people." Stiles countered, completely bewildered by the odd direction Jace had dragged the conversation towards. "Chris—Thomas—could you please duct tape his mouth?" He spun around in the computer chair to look at the other two.
Chris arched an eyebrow at him. "Do you honestly think we can control, Jacey?"
Scott spoke up then. "Ok—so why are you trying to declare war on us?" He questioned, exchanging bewildered glances with the rest of the pack. Erica looked like she was struggling not to laugh.
Jace nodded. "Because we're willing to fight you for Stiles." He spoke as though the logic was perfectly sound and made a lot of sense. Stiles privately thought that the demonic creature they were fighting last night must have knocked a few screws loose in Jace's head. He wasn't present, but he figured the other must have a small concussion because last Stiles checked, he was not an inanimate object to be fought over.
"Since when was I inanimate object for you to fight over?" Stiles interjected. "I'm pretty sure, I'm a living, breathing, semi-functional human." He added.
"Shush. We're doing what's best for you." Jace covered his mouth with a hand. "But, yes—we're fighting you for Stiles. Because we want him to stay here with us. Well, mainly Thomas does." Stiles rolled his eyes at that, knowing that it wasn't just Thomas. Diana also had plans for kidnapping him and making him stay there for the rest of his life. "And by stay—I mean, he's transferring to our old high school and living with us for his senior year." Jace added for clarification.
Stiles licked his cousin's hand and then cringed as Jace pulled his hand away with a yelp. "Jace, there is a sink that exists for a reason—learn to wash your hands sometimes. Anyways, do I get a say in this? Because this is starting to feel like kidnap." Stiles grabbed the water bottle from the desk and chugged a few gulps melodramatically.
Thomas patted his head, "Don't worry about it, Sti."
Scott made a protesting noise. "You cannot kidnap my best friend." Scott sounded incredibly scandalized. "I mean, seriously. You—can't do that." He continued, voice nearly melding the words together.
Lydia contributed to the conversation at that moment, leaning forwards. "I don't think it would be wise of you to attempt to kidnap the sheriff's son." She remarked, voice turning nearly derisive at the mention of Stiles' father. Her gaze briefly flicked to Derek, who looked entirely unamused, though he hadn't contributed to the conversation beyond his typical growling and grumbling that the laptop mic didn't pick up on.
Thomas waved a dismissive hand. "We have the sheriff's permission."
Isaac raised both eyebrows so high they nearly disappeared under his mop of dirty blonde hair. "The sheriff gave you permission to kidnap his son?" He questioned, disbelieving.
Jace nodded, sounding victorious that he had gotten sensible Thomas to join his campaign outwardly. "Yes, he's the one who brought up Stiles moving out here when he visited." Jace informed the group with a smirk.
"Wait—did we all eavesdrop on that conversation?" Stiles questioned.
"That conversation actually happened." Scott raised his voice slightly.
Stiles rubbed the back of his neck guiltily, "I was going to mention the possibility of me staying with the brigand of idiots over here—" Jace made a brief, offended noise, interrupting Stiles. "—but then they kind of came in and took over the conversation." He shot Jace a glare, then moved on to Thomas and Chris. Chris was just an enabler at this point. "And—it's a possibility that doesn't even need to be considered one because Beacon Hills is my home." Stiles added.
Chris nodded. "So—you decided then?" He checked. "Are you sure?"
Scott made a choking noise, eyes wide when Stiles glanced at them. In fact, Derek's pack looked entirely on edge as Stiles could see the flicker of gold, blue, and red in the respective eyes of the betas and alpha. "Wait—you were actually considering moving thirteen hours away." Scott's voice sounded wounded.
He shrugged, glancing down at his fingers. "Maybe a little." Stiles answered. He glanced over at his cousins for reassurance, and they directed him with looks that alerted him to the fact that Jace was unserious about declaring war—possibly—and just wanted him to confront that issue. Meddling, well-meaning assholes. "I just—I kind of feel like I belong, you know? Like I'm not alone, here. Like I have people. And—I don't know—I wasn't getting that feeling from all of you so, yeah, part of me wanted to stay here. Live here." He gestured slightly, shrinking a little in on himself.
Lydia cleared her throat. "But—you're not going to, anymore, right?" She checked.
Biting his lip, he mulled it over in his head. There was still a part of him that thought it might be better if he stayed—despite the conversation and the fact that Beacon Hills remained his home. But homes can change. Here, this place, this farm, could easily transition from being a vacation to being a home. "Right?" Isaac questioned when Stiles took too long to answer.
"It would be so much easier if I did." Stiles finally admitted, not meeting their gazes. "The farm—it could easily become home. And I have people here—" He started, being cut off by Derek finally speaking actual words.
"You have people in Beacon Hills, too." Derek insisted, expression unreadable.
Stiles lifted his gaze from his fingernails. "Do I?" He raised an eyebrow, nonverbally asking if he really did have Derek's pack in his corner. The fact that he had forced himself to learn to refer to them as Derek's pack rather than his own or theirs even in his own mind remained obvious.
Jackson reached over to put a hand over a protesting Scott's mouth—knowing that he wasn't the one who needed to answer. Derek was. Derek paused, meeting his gaze squarely through the screen and Stiles gathered that he wished they were physically in-person as well. It would be easier to read the subtle shifts in Derek's body language without the distance between them. "Yes." Derek finally answered.
He didn't have to look behind him to know that Jace was smirking as the older cousin leaned over Stiles, tilting his head to one side. "Do you two make it a habit to choke everyone around you with the UST? I mean, seriously, how do you guys even manage that over a skype call?" Jace questioned, breaking the tense atmosphere.
Stiles started choking on his own tongue. "I'm sorry—what? There's no—we're not. Why would there be—? We don't have sexual tension. That's not a thing we have." Stiles stuttered over his words, before electing to reach down and grab a shoe and smack Jace upside the head with it. Repeatedly. He knew that Jace was just saying that to be an asshole and because he knew about the unrequited feelings. Stiles was going to brutally murder him during training tomorrow to the point where no one would be able to recognize him as Jace Haerviu if they managed to locate his body.
"They do." Lydia, of all people, agreed. "It's worse in person." She added.
Even Scott nodded and Stiles resolved that he was not going back to Beacon Hills. He was going to get in his jeep and drive till he made it to Alaska. Then live a life as one of the Alaskan bush people. "It is quite entertaining, though—to see how red you're turning, Mr. Stilinski." Peter Hale—creeperwolf to out-creep all creeperwolves—noted with a growing smirk. "My nephew does not turn nearly as red." He turned to glance at Derek—who was grumbling under his breath words that Stiles was grateful he couldn't hear.
Correction; if Stiles managed to escape to Alaska, he would probably have to live the rest of his life in hiding and not getting on the TV show because Derek was going to rip his throat out—with his teeth. "Ok—let's change the subject." Stiles remarked, "You know before you all contribute to my murder even more." He added, raising an eyebrow with a dry expression on his face. "Umm—" His voice tapered off ineffectually, much to the amusement of those around him and his desire to know how to make the ground open up to swallow him.
"We could talk about the war I'm still declaring on all of you for Stiles." Jace clearly didn't know about the invention of mercy.
Stiles threw his hands up. "I'm still not an inanimate object."
The hand gesture nearly smacked Jace in the face, which made Stiles sad because he did want to smack Jace in the face. "Yeah—yeah—I know about your habit of having wars that involve inanimate objects." Jace rolled his eyes. "The kitchen sink." He spoke simply and Stiles reconsidered his initial protesting sound—remembering that his fight with Jace over the kitchen sink hose could be considered declaring war with Jace.
Chris piped up then, unhelpfully. "Don't forget the wall." He reminded them and Stiles grimaced. During a slight mishap in training, he had ended up punching the wall of a stall and nearly broke his finger. It was still slightly bruised from the ordeal.
Jace nodded, lips twitching with a laugh. "Who could forget the wall? You got in a fight with a wall and lost." He stared down at Stiles and Stiles raised the shoe threateningly—reminding Jace that he was still in possession of the article.
"I did not lose. I broke the wall." Stiles sulked a little bit when Thomas took the shoe from him.
The blonde stared at him; eyebrows hiked high on his forehead. "You nearly broke a finger." Jace stated, voice dry and the statement a near deadpan.
Stiles nodded. "Nearly is not actually doing it, Jacey wacey." He grinned despite the fact that Jace smacked him on the back of the head for the nickname, smirk replaced with a scowl. "Besides, technically the damage to the wall will last longer than the damage to my finger—so I won." Stiles finished, crossing his arms.
Isaac snorted, shaking his head. "So—you're still as much of a chaotic dumbass as ever?"
He turned to the laptop screen; eyebrows raised high on his forehead. "You say that like you're not also a chaotic dumbass. You're in the same boat as me, pup." Stiles smirked slightly as Isaac narrowed his eyes at the nickname, though the half-pleased smile that twitched his lips upwards for a second gave him away.
"Fair enough." Scott shrugged.
The betrayed look Isaac tossed Scott and the ensuing scuffle eased some of the residual tension lining Stiles' shoulder. There would be more conversations to be had—he hadn't even touched upon the fact that he was getting himself deeper involved in the supernatural. Derek had only just admitted him as a pack member and even that carried a bit more reluctance than Stiles would have preferred. He would probably try to keep that from them as he knew why they wanted to protect him from the supernatural and could imagine they'd be somewhat displeased by him trading away normalcy to be involved.
That wasn't even touching upon the fact that he was receiving training from some that the pack might consider to be hunters—even though Stiles firmly believed that they were protectors instead as there was a vast difference between the two groups that sounded eerily similar when one looked at their mandate.
"Dude—what?" Stiles stood on the front porch of the main house on the farm, gaping at the cars that had just pulled into the driveway. It was early evening, the fireflies just starting to sprinkle the surrounding forest like fairy-lights—there were never fireflies in Beacon Hills, and Stiles loved seeing them here and they even made a game of catching them and letting them go. His eyebrow raised high, disappearing underneath the sweaty mess of hair on his head—they had grabbed an early dinner so that they could have a movie night in the living room, and he had headed outside for a brief moment to get away from the stuffy air inside.
Though, he liked the somewhat crowded air that the large family—having so many people in one space made him wish he actually had blood-related siblings—the heat from the oven being on for the past few hours had made the air inside the house sweltering at best, especially since the air-conditioning unit in the kitchen had broken yesterday and they were relying on a crappy, white fan Aunt Becca had found at a yard sale.
Now, he could see the other motive for Aunt Becca shooing him out of the house as she had done—Stiles was partially afraid that she might start throwing wet towels at his head if he didn't elect to go outside when he did.
If there was one thing he learned over the past month and a half, Aunt Becca was a monster in her kitchen. Stiles could relate, he had lost track of the number of times he had semi-jokingly threatened his father to stay out of the kitchen while he was cooking. Granted, he had never had so many hands available to help during the cleaning-up afterwards part. "We don't have enough space for this." Stiles murmured to himself, crossing his arms, and leaning semi-casually against the wooden post framing the staircase.
Casual was not his middle name. He could not do casual. "Actually, we cleared some space in the attic." Thomas unhelpfully piped up from behind him, poking his head out of the screen door as he caught a snippet of Stiles' contrite mumbling. "Why do you think we had you helping Jace clean the barn all day?"
Stiles' other eyebrow joined the first. "And here I thought it was because you were trying to destroy my will to live." He remarked sarcastically, expression dry. Biting his lip, he wondered just how much space they had managed to make in the attic. They were welcoming seven people—six of which were teenagers—into a four-bedroom house where six people already lived. It just sounded crowded. "Maybe we could just stick them with Jacey's brethren." Stiles suggested, keeping his voice low.
It was probably ineffective as everyone, aside from Lydia, was a werewolf—but he had the foresight to attempt. A for effort—right? "Mom would probably have an aneurism if we stuck guests in the barn —specifically in the pig pen." Thomas snorted, "She'd stick us in there before anyone else." He added.
"I'm sure Jacey would feel completely at home." Stiles remarked with a half-smirk. He would probably pay for disparaging remarks later when Jace took his turn training him tomorrow—but for now, he didn't have any consequences tonight since Jace didn't have the patience for board games. He watched as Derek parked the sleek, black Camaro with Jackson parking next to him and Lydia finishing their progression, before heading off the porch. "I'd love to know how you guys got the address. No, wait—ridiculous question, my dad probably gave it to you." Stiles shook his head, shoving his hands into his pockets and moving his weight to his toes and then back to his heels.
He gave a slight huff of air when Scott wrapped him in a quick—and tight, Jesus, Scott needed to remember that werewolves have superhuman strength—hug. "Damn—I really missed you." Scott spoke honestly, one hand on the strap of the backpack he had slung over his shoulder. Stiles glanced over the three cars the seven of them had traveled in—Erica had rode shotgun with Lydia, Scott and Boyd with Jackson, and Isaac with Derek and they were all stepping out from their vehicles, stretching their legs.
He sympathized with that pain—being stuck in a car for over twelve hours, not fun, not even a little bit—though it brought him back to the question of what exactly they were doing here and why they had come. "Missed you too, bro." Stiles patted Scott's shoulder, eyebrows raised as he surveyed the pack. "I'm still wondering how you all convinced Miss. Lydia Martin to come to a farm of all places." He spoke a bit louder.
Isaac matched his expression perfectly. "What? We don't get a hello? Nice to see you?" He retrieved his own duct-tapped duffel bag from the trunk of the Camaro. "We just drove over fifteen hours to see you." Isaac reminded him.
"You say that like I begged you to come." Stiles retorted quickly, before back-pedaling. "Not that I'm not happy to see all of you—it's nice—but I wasn't really expecting you all to come rolling down the driveway after dinner because apparently my family is capable of keeping one thing a secret." He called the last part in a louder voice directed to the house—not entirely willing to spell out how exactly it had gone from him knowing about the Derek thing to every single family member, including his dad knowing.
His dad. The man who contributed to his existence. That had been the worst and most awkward phone call of Stiles' short existence. Getting run over by a car, then a bus, then a train, and then an airplane would have been preferable than that ear-bleeding fate. "Mom says that you have to be a polite person, Sti." Jace called out the window.
"I hope the top of that window falls on his head." Stiles muttered. "He can't even talk about being polite—he sulked over me being taller than him—it was the first sentence out of his mouth." He elaborated, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck in a subconsciously nervous gesture. "Anyways—do you guys want food and to go put your stuff down? We've got a whole 'nother pan of lasagna—and now it makes sense why she made a second pan." Stiles chewed roughly on his lower lip.
Jackson rolled his eyes. "No. We just sat in cars for over twelve hours to stand around awkwardly in the driveway, Stilinski." He retorted sarcastically, taking Lydia's suitcase when she stomped on his foot and her eyes darted to the luggage.
Stiles offered a sarcastic grin. "Then, by all means, enjoy the fireflies." He gestured widely. He twisted his fingers, entirely wrong-footed on what to say, feeling incredibly awkward, before giving a short nod and leading the way to the house. "Ok—so, um, guys—this is my extended family. Aunt Becca, Uncle Alex—and you've met Thomas, Chris, and Jace, and you've heard about Diana. Um—family members—these are my friends. Scott, Isaac, Derek, Jackson, Erica, Boyd, and Lydia." Gesturing to each person when he said their name, Stiles took a deep breath once introductions were out of the way as he stopped their precession in the foyer.
"I'm surprised you didn't introduce Jace as being adopted from the family pigs." Chris chuckled, even as Jace scowled with an eye-roll, kicking his twin brother in the calve.
He shrugged. "I thought about it—but I wanted to lead them up to Jace belonging with the pigs." Stiles deadpanned. Jace smacked his forehead with his hand, muttering some vaguely threatening curse-words under his breath that caused Aunt Becca to grab the spray bottle without even batting an eyelash and spray him in the face with it. Stiles' hero. "So—we've got some stuff to talk about, we'll probably be down by the time you all decide on a movie." Stiles grabbed Scott's shoulder and started shoving him towards the staircase.
Aunt Becca nodded, smiling warmly at Derek's pack members. "Don't let him talk your ears off—he will if you let him—and there's a lasagna being kept warm in the oven for when you all get hungry. Just make yourselves at home." She seemed like she wanted to get up and shove food down their throats but was holding back because she knew that Stiles would be awkward if he didn't get the conversation out of the way.
Stiles also wondered if she had some hidden motives behind the lasagna—she had seemed rather livid when she had grilled him, and he wouldn't put it past her to sneak laxatives in for revenge and do it with a cheery smile on her face. She was so related to him that it hurt his stomach from laughing sometimes. "Will do—thank you for offering your home to us, Mrs. Haerviu." Lydia thanked her politely.
"It's not a problem." Aunt Becca assured. Stiles led the way up the stairs, pulling down the rickety ladder attachment for the attic. He flicked the switch in the hallway for the attic light before climbing up it—somewhat surprised to see the set-up air-mattresses and folded blankets. The air-mattresses might need a bit more filling up due to how long ago it had been since they had been pumped. He probably should have figured out that they had some stuff set-up as the boxes had been moved out of the way and a few fans placed around the room as well as the skylight window being cracked open.
"It's a bit cramped." Jackson commented, dragging his and Lydia's things to an available corner. Stiles crossed his arms, lifting a somewhat scolding eyebrow and Jackson grimaced after a second. "Not bad for an air mattress." He sat down on one of the queen-sized mattresses, "And decent air flow."
Stiles cringed. "Ok—compliments not necessary, like ever. It just makes the awkward somehow even more awkward and the awkward does not need more awkward-ness." Stiles informed him, taking a step to the side so that the group could situate their things. "I'm a bit shocked that you all came all the way here—like fifteen hour drive with your furball problems—for something that we resolved last night." He continued cringing, trying to keep himself from completely grimacing at the mention of their skype call.
At the end of it, he had figured that it had been worked out and would not induce an unexpected visit the next day. "You thought that we had resolved the fact that you thought about moving here instead of coming back because you overheard a conversation between us that broke the camel's back and your trust in us." Lydia summarized with a completely flat expression on her pretty face.
Frowning, he shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. "Ok—when you put it like that—it screams unresolved. But—I'm not actually going to be moving here. Or anywhere before I graduate. Graduating with our class at our high school." Stiles declared, electing to take a seat by the entrance for ease of bolting. He could always just keep them in the attic—which, in hindsight, might be cruel since enclosed spaces could be triggering to both Derek and Isaac. He still remembered when Isaac and Stiles had been locked in a closet a few days before he left and the ensuing panic attack it caused in Isaac to be in a dark, enclosed space.
It made him glad that his family had had the foresight to open the windows—even if it was just for the fact that hot air rises, and a broken air conditioner downstairs would probably make the heat positively horrendous in the attic. Too bad they didn't have a basement.
"Well—we're going to address the root of the problem, Batman." Erica informed him with no room for hesitation. "And if you try to run down the attic stairs—remember that you'll probably trip on the way down and we're faster than you." She added, sensing his purpose for choosing a spot by the entrance.
He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Do we have to?" Stiles knew that he sounded whiney—but there was exceedingly little care to be given at the moment. Maybe he would care in the shower when his playlist of embarrassing moments of Stiles Stilinski's life played in super-slow-motion.
Scott nodded. "Yes. We have to."
"But why?" Stiles leaned backwards, propping himself upwards with his elbows, legs splayed out before him. "I don't want to." He continued.
Jackson snorted. "Well, doesn't that suck for you, Stilinski." He sounded completely unapologetic and unmoved by Stiles' sulking. For a moment, Stiles wished that he possessed Diana's gift with the puppy-eyes.
Isaac shuffled forwards as the rest of the group collectively took their seats—leaving them in a roughly shaped circle. Stiles barely refrained from commenting on them looking like a cult—it was a truly valiant effort because the comment was right there. "Look —I think we need to talk about what happened with Gerard Argent." The line of questioning took Stiles completely off guard. He hadn't expected that—though he probably should have considering he hid the fact that Gerard had done anything to him and last night they had discovered he had and probably wanted some context.
Which Stiles was totally comfortable giving. Not even remotely. "What about it? He said some crude things—roughed me up a little with the influence he had from controlling the Kanima. There's not a whole lot of stuff to talk about there." Stiles knew that he would probably be uncomfortable all throughout this little chat.
"When?" Isaac questioned. "When did he take you?"
He bit his lip, "After the lacrosse game where I kicked total ass." Stiles answered honestly. He kept his gaze from going to Erica and Boyd—wondering if they had shared that they had been there with him and had respected his desire to not tell anyone though he wondered if they agreed with it. He offered a half-shrug, unable to refrain from elaborating. "He snagged me off the field with a few of his cronies while everyone was distracted by Gerard making Jackson do something."
Jackson glowered at his fingernails, expression dark. "So, that's another horrible thing he made me an accomplice in." He snarled, murmuring the words with the same countenance as his expression. Stiles met his gaze, browed furrowed and lips parted—about to speak, but he said nothing because he could see the guilt Jackson harbored.
Stiles resolved to talk about the guilt thing with Jackson later—if they could force him through this awkward conversation, then it was only fair for him to invoke the same onto them. "And—he took you to get to me." Scott clarified, expression tight and unreadable. Stiles could read the accompanying guilt in his eyes that thickened his words as well. There seemed to be plenty of guilt to go around—none of it something they had earned as every action had been spear-headed by Gerard Argent.
"Yes." It was a partial truth—he had also taken Stiles because he was a sympathizer and Gerard had wanted the location of Derek. Stiles had given it away once to Peter Hale and he would not be following the same hellish path with Gerard Argent.
Derek leaned forward, meeting his gaze with eyes like a kaleidoscope. Stiles had to remind himself that he was not alone with Derek and should not get lose in determining the exact color of Derek's eyes. "And that was the only reason he took you?" Derek flicked his gaze to Erica and Boyd and Stiles knew that the two had told him that Stiles had been with them.
Stiles met his gaze head-on, trying not to blink or give anything away. "It was the main one. He wanted to paint a picture." He grimaced at the memory of those words—remembering how Gerard had used them so easily and accurately to describe his plans for Stiles. A pity that Stiles did not play by his rules and had not let that picture be painted for the intended to see. You have a knack for creating a vivid picture, Mr. Stilinski. Let me paint one of my own. Scott McCall finds his best friend bloodied and beaten to a pulp. How does that sound?
"There were other things he said, Batman." Erica contributed to the conversation; eyes faraway with the recollection. She leaned forward, "Aside from hurting you to hurt Scott—he also said that we wouldn't give up our alpha—that our instinct was too strong—but he tried to get you to." Erica stated.
Stiles glanced away from Derek, looking at her with a pinched expression on his face. "You remember that?" He questioned. She exchanged a glance with Boyd and they both nodded. The rest of Derek's pack seemed to come to the same realization that Stiles had been there with Erica and Boyd.
Derek snarled. "Why didn't you say anything?" When Stiles met his gaze, the blue-green-brown color he was fond of was replaced with ruby red. He held up a silencing hand towards Erica and Boyd—who both made low, keening, whining noises in their throats at the demand—and Scott looked like he was holding himself back from leaping to Stiles' defense.
He shrugged. "We were a bit busy that night." Stiles answered defensively. "It slipped my mind."
Scott snorted. "Being tortured slipped your mind?" He shot back; voice barely controlled. "And—you could have said something when it was over. Or even before—it would have given us more incentive to rip Gerard apart." Scott continued.
Rolling his eyes, Stiles regarded his best friend with a flat look. "Like we needed more of an incentive to rip him apart." He countered, completely confident in that belief. He bit his lip, "I guess I just figured that there was no point—I was fine. I mean, yeah, nightmares. But I've always had those—they're not a super recent development." Stiles added. A part of him was also upset that they were angry with him because he had kept it a secret, but it wasn't like he could claim bragging rights for passing a polygraph.
And that wasn't a fair thought, at all. "Stiles." Derek growled. He seemed to be thinking deeply on something, expression unreadable and eyes not giving away at what he was going to say next. "I'm sorry." The alpha finally spoke again, and Stiles was completely taken aback. His mind dissected the words, finding they didn't make a lick of sense. Why would Derek be sorry? Other than for the never pack thing, which they had somewhat resolved last night with the subtext to their conversation.
"Come again—it sounded like you just apologized, sourwolf." Stiles spoke, throat dry.
At that, Derek rolled his eyes. "You shouldn't be pack, Stiles." Derek declared. "You shouldn't be—but you are. And the past few weeks have been difficult without you. And you shouldn't be because this is dangerous. The world you are recklessly involving yourself in is dangerous. And you shouldn't want to be pack—any sane person with a hint of self-preservation could see that." He clarified, struggling through his words slightly and Stiles mused that it was the longest he had ever heard Derek string together sentences.
Biting his lip, he thought about it—dissecting the words again and again. "That—that sounds like a lot of should. But—um—what about what you all want? Do you want me to be in your pack?" Stiles thought to address the rest of the pack instead of just asking the main question he wanted to. He wanted to ask Derek that one. Do you want me to be pack? Do you want me around?
Jackson scoffed. "We wouldn't have all dropped everything to drive here if we didn't." It surprised Stiles that he was the one to answer that question as he had been expectant of an answer from Scott or Isaac or Derek.
Carefully, he thought about it. "But I already told you all that I was coming back. That I wasn't going to move here. I mean, Jace was definitely joking about the declaring war thing." Stiles spoke slowly at first, before the words picked up speed. "And I do get it—maybe if my mind wasn't made up—you consider me a pack member and it's like me walking away from that and I think you'd be fighting that." He continued.
"It was necessary for us to come, Stiles." Isaac remarked simply.
The group nodded and Boyd spoke up then. "When we all decided to become a better pack—we did it because we all needed people to be like family for us. We needed people to be in our corner—to know that we have someone that would sit with us through the bad moments. We needed the assurance and comfort that came with being in a pack." Boyd informed him, "And you weren't aware of it—but that includes you. You have brought a lot of us comfort and make it easier for us to interact because we're a vastly different group of people in personality."
Erica continued on from where her potential mate left off. "And we forgot that you needed that as well, Batman. We forgot that you needed that assurance, and we know why you considered leaving—why you were torn between moving here and coming back to Beacon Hills?" She offered a smirk, "It was pretty easy to pick up on when we saw you interacting with your cousins." She finished.
Stiles stared at them thoughtfully for a moment longer. "They're like your pack." Derek sounded like he was having difficulty saying the words. "We saw how you were talking to them—how you almost forgot we were there, and it reminded us that—that you're keeping us at arms' length. Even now." Derek pointed out.
"I'm having an entirely deep conversation with you about Gerard Argent of all people—how is that keeping you at arms' length?" Stiles countered; expression locked into a challenging frown.
Scott looked pained. "Because you keep biting your lip and holding yourself back from saying more." Scott answered, voice nearly a whisper of a sound. Stiles stilled, glancing with wide eyes at his best friend, before the knowledge of that settled. He had been mainly stilted and biting his lip, but the movements had been subconscious ones. "And you keep looking like you want to run. No matter what—you've never treated us with that level of distance before, Stiles." He elaborated.
He bit his lip to keep himself from throwing their words right back in their faces—not the ones they had said recently, but the ones from that night. Isaac made a triumphant noise in the back of his throw. "See—you're doing it right now." Isaac gestured in his direction emphatically. "What are you trying to hold back from saying?" He glanced towards Stiles in askance.
"Maybe it's because I'm digesting all of this. I spent the past month and a half overanalyzing every moment of my friendship with all of you and wondering why you didn't say anything to me and why you were talking about it behind my back and how many times exactly you had done that before." Stiles blurted out. "Forgive me if it's taking me a minute to rewrite all of that and shape it into you caring because it didn't sound like you cared that night. If anything, it sounded like you wanted me to get the fuck out of your lives." He added spitefully.
Once he realized that he had let the bitterness seep into his words, he froze, and then clamped his mouth shut—cringing. "Finally—we're getting to the bottom of it, Stilinski." Jackson crowed smugly.
Stiles raised both eyebrows at him. "I'm sorry—you want me to lash out at you?" He questioned dubiously. "What kind of crack-head screwed-up logic is that?" He couldn't help the raising of his voice, though at least the words were kept somewhat child-appropriate.
"The kind that comes from the fact that you've been pushing us away for the past month and a half. That if we don't get you to get it all out now—you're going to keep pushing us away and not being yourself around us." Lydia answered, folding her arms across her chest. "Yes—we get annoyed with you. But that doesn't mean we don't care about you. And when we said we wanted distance or that you were too much and for you to go away—we didn't actually want you to go." Lydia continued.
He tried not to over-think a response as he mulled over her words. "Then—if that's not what you wanted—what did you want?" Stiles questioned. He didn't need to add that he took those words to mean exactly what was said—how else was he supposed to interpret them.
Isaac grinned ruefully. "It means that we're idiots." He answered. "We didn't appreciate what we had until it was gone. Until you were gone." Isaac continued, before lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck. "We were actually going to surprise-visit you mid-August or maybe sooner because we missed you a lot and you were so busy and didn't answer unless it was about researching a threat. Hell—there were no pixies." He added.
Stiles choked. "Wait—what? There wasn't a disturbed nest of pixies?"
Scott nodded, looking incredibly sheepish. "You weren't responding—so we figured if there was a danger—you would start responding again." Scott answered the unasked question of why they would lie about that.
Stiles swallowed roughly. "So—you want me to lash out at you?" He changed the topic slightly. "But—why? I mean you were all technically lashing out and we all know how that ended. How will this be any different if—" Stiles glanced at each face of the members of Derek's pack.
Derek put a hand on his forearm, and his words tapered off at the physical touch. Underneath Derek's hand, gooseflesh raised along his skin, and he felt like there were little sparks along the nerve endings. Heat crawled up his neck and he really hoped that Derek couldn't feel the minute reactions. That and that Derek wouldn't notice the tiny pinpricks of pain from his bruises from training.
Stiles didn't know exactly how they might feel about Thomas, Chris, and Jace being protectors—which was a different avenue than hunters but following similar guidelines of protecting humans. Though, he figured that the protectors were more about preserving humanity and saw the humanity in every creature aside from the demonically-powered ones. He wondered if Derek's pack would be able to see it that way.
There was something in Derek's gaze that held him still, something that Stiles couldn't understand. He bit his lip as he awaited Derek's answer and reason for cutting him off through a single, physical gesture. "It'll be different because we're hashing this all out face-to-face." Derek spoke simply, and—though it was no longer necessary—he kept his hand on Stiles' forearm, fingers warm against the skin.
Werewolves ran hotter in body temperature.
He told himself that that was the only reason for the sweltering heat of his skin.
"Ok." Stiles exhaled. "So—how are we supposed to do this? Like, are we going to go around the circle or something?" He queried, finally removing his gaze from Derek, and reddening when his gaze landed on Erica instead. She was wearing a knowledgeable smirk that implied that she knew exactly the level of nerves under his skin and coiling in his stomach.
Jackson rolled his eyes. "I'll start, then. Just to get this over with."
"This feels like an odd version of group therapy." Isaac murmured.
Stiles completely agreed with that—though he settled himself on the floor for a long time of them trying to get a deeper understanding of one another. It was awkward, with plenty of stilted moments, but he could almost feel the pack bonds sliding into place under his skin—something he thought only wolves would be able to sense. Maybe it was his spark—or heat stroke from the fact that it had been a sweltering day that made for a humid evening—he mused absently.
But, it was in that moment when he actually felt himself forgiving them rather than saying he did and pretending that he had until it was true.
This isn't the end...because there is still the protector issue of his cousins to resolve with the pack, and initially I was going to have him spend the entire summer not confronting Derek's pack (really, it's Stiles' pack), but then I was like...his cousins are all for letting him heal from what happened, all of the tiny moments that built into this, but I think they'd also want him to confront those issues as part of the healing process. To be completely honest, I have not written all of the parts of this...I've been busy with a combination of family stuff (went to a family dinner after shopping with mom and before seeing the new Spiderman...and oh my god, I have lost my ability to even function from that and I love it...), school work, and typing up the next chapter for Silver Webs in a Starlit City (which is harder to do since it's been so long since I watched the episode and the transcript website I was using doesn't actually say who's talking, which is kind of annoying, not gonna lie)...
Part IV coming soon...within the next few days, hopefully...
